Who cares about the domestic statistics, its not a big deal.
But, sure, it's SNN who are including the 'domestic' stats. Without the 'domestic' and, in particular, the Santa flights, they wouldn't be able to say they'd an increase in passengers in 2013.
The sooner we can accept that these 9,000 passengers were indeed valid passengers, as per the IATA definition, the quicker we can move on.
But, sure, this is just dodging the issue. If they couldn't have (double) counted the flights, there would have been no point in having them.
You'll appreciate, the issue is less about whether the IATA anticipated that there could be situations in which airports, in despair, might boost their passenger numbers by flying people in a circle, and more about whether SNN's motive in sponsoring these flights was to artificially inflate their numbers so that they could report a technical increase in the numbers of "arrivals" and "departures".
Seriously, if you think this issue can be brushed aside with some kind of sleeveen interpretation of what constitutes a passenger, you need to reflect a little more on the situation.