It is used in several reports and analysis to monitor and track the changes of the segments through time. The documents help to better understand the traffic trends in Europe. The market segment definitions have been reviewed regularly with the last important revision dated back to 2016.
In 2022, the EUROCONTROL market segment rules were reviewed and updated to better define the distribution of IFR movements across different types of traffic. The ‘traditional scheduled’ segment was split into ‘regional’ and ‘mainline’. Additional refinements were made to the other segments. The new rules are detailed in the document "EUROCONTROL Market segment update 2022".
The market segment rules available below constitute the rules for classification of low-cost, all-cargo and business aviation types of flights. In 2022, we added a new ‘regional’ segment.
In August 2025 we conducted a partial review of the market segment rules, covering All-Cargo and making minor revisions to Business Aviation and Low-Cost. The updated rules have been applied retroactively, effective from January 2025.