Gross domestic product (GDP) is a handy measure of the size of a country's economy, reflecting the value of all products and services finished within a given period. Economists, politicans and business owners alike watch GDP to get a feel for where the economy is going, whether policies are working and to help make business investment decisions.
There has long been speculation that there is a link between GDP and air traffic and some research (such as those from Steer Daves Gleave and the UK's GTMC) has demonstrated that this is the case in the UK at least.
But what about other countries?
For this week's Chart of the Week, we have taken data from the Netherlands to see if there is any correlation and the quarterly figures for GDP and total traffic through Dutch airports is shown.
Continued below
The charts starts in the first quarter of 2008 and, after the turmoil of the global economic crisis of that year, the pattern develops into something very familiar. When people are travelling the most, taking their summer holidays, for example, GDP for that quarter falls; when they are back at work, GDP rises.
Some research points to a finding that air traffic grows at around twice the rate of growth in GDP. Does this hold for the Netherlands?
Certainly in the past year, air traffic has been growing at between two and three times the rate of GDP although over the longer term this factor is higher.
For Dutch travel buyers, forecasting growth in travel volumes in the years ahead may be as simple as looking at forecasts for the economy.
We will look at other countries in the future.