AI Analysis: Itinerant movements, by type of power plant, at airports with NAV CANADA services and other selected airports, monthly

Executive Summary

This Statistics Canada dataset (Table 23100300) tracks monthly itinerant aircraft movements across 127 Canadian airports from January 2022 to December 2025, encompassing 23,608 valid records across five power plant categories. The data is heavily right-skewed — a mean of 1,962 versus a median of 175 — reflecting a landscape where a handful of major hubs dominate national traffic while most airports handle modest volumes. Strong cross-category correlations (all r > 0.93) confirm that overall airport activity levels drive movements uniformly across all aircraft types, with clear seasonal peaks in summer months.

Key Findings

• The dataset covers 48 monthly periods across 127 airports, with movement counts ranging from a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 145,137 — the latter recorded for piston engine aircraft.
• The mean itinerant movements (1,962) are nearly 11 times the median (175), confirming a heavily right-skewed distribution where a small number of high-traffic airports significantly inflate the average.
• Jet engines recorded the highest mean movements per record (2,775), but their very low median (65) indicates that jet traffic is concentrated at a few major hub airports rather than distributed broadly.
• Turbo-propellers showed the most balanced distribution among all power plant types, with a median of 438 that is closest to their mean of 2,429, suggesting more consistent activity across airports.
• All five power plant types are strongly positively correlated with one another (r = 0.93–0.97), with Helicopters and Turbo-propellers showing the tightest relationship (r = 0.969), indicating that overall airport busyness drives activity across all aircraft categories simultaneously.
• 170 data points were flagged as statistical outliers (z-score > 3), pointing to specific airports and months where movements deviated significantly from typical patterns.
• The data exhibits consistent seasonal fluctuations typical of Canadian aviation, with national movement peaks in summer months and notable dips in winter across all power plant categories.