A comparative study of airport connectivity in China,Europe and US: Which network provides the best service to passengers?

This paper investigates the connectivity of the airport networks in China, Europe and US. Our aim is to analyze which network is most beneficial to final passengers in terms of travel time and which of the network features lead to such a result. A time-dependent minimum path approach is employed to calculate the minimum travel time between each pair of airports in the three networks, inclusive of flight times and waiting times in intermediate airports. We evaluate each fastest indirect connection in terms of waiting times and routing factors to consider the effect of the hubs’ coordination and locations. The Chinese network provides the quickest travels for passengers, but this performance is explained by a small number of airports per inhabitant. The US network is the most coordinated when considering indirect connections. The EU network provides the most homogeneous level of service when comparing airports of different sizes.     

Connectivity levels and the competitive position of Spanish airports and Iberia’s network rationalization strategy, 2001-2007

This paper examines the connectivity of the Spanish airport system between 2001 and 2007. Over the period, network carriers considerably strengthened the connectivity between Spanish airports and major European hubs. Although OneWorld is still the dominant alliance in Spain, SkyTeam and Star achieved a larger connectivity share through the growth of indirect services provided through their northern European hubs. In addition, the network rationalization strategy of Iberia and its decision to concentrate operations at Madrid-Barajas had important implications for the connectivity of other Spanish airports. Low-cost carriers have boosted direct connectivity from secondary Spanish airports.     

Is spatial dispersal the dominant trend in air transport development? A global analysis for 2006–2015

The economic performance of a city or region is considered to be intertwined with its air travel capability. It is thus important for planners and stakeholders to understand the changes in the global aviation network. This study investigates the global aviation network, taking 10 years worth's OAG data from the years 2006–2015 and examines whether a spatial dispersal trend dominates the development of the aviation industry. It considers the aviation network at the airport level, and the airport–city level, which may consist of one or more airports. After clarification of the various definitions of concentration, we find that there appears a trend toward a dispersal pattern in the global aviation network at the airport level. On the other hand, there appears a slight concentration at the airport–city level. Besides, there have been some major capacity expansions at airports in the Middle East and East Asia, while the capacities of some traditional hubs in Europe and North America have become increasingly constrained since the 2008 global financial crisis. Furthermore, our study provides further observations consistent with the phenomenon of bypassing of traditional hubs, especially mega-hubs. Competition for passengers among hubs and secondary airports, especially in multi-airport cities, is discussed.     

Temporal configurations of European airline networks

The deregulation of the US domestic airline industry resulted in the reconfiguration of airline networks into hub-and-spoke systems. In contrast to the US airlines, airlines in Europe already operated spatially concentrated networks long before deregulation. This concentration at the national home-base was the outcome of bilateral traffic rights designated to the national carrier. With a few exemptions, however, most of these star-shaped networks were not coordinated in time. Transfer opportunities at most national airports only existed by accident. Only airports that were operated as gateways to Europe provided planned connectivity between intercontinental flights and European feeder services. The deregulation of the EU market stimulated a second phase of airline network restructuring. European airlines concentrated their networks by adopting or intensifying wave-system structures (‘banks’ to use the US term) in their flight schedules. This paper investigates these post-deregulation temporal concentrations in European aviation networks. The development and configuration of wave-system structures at European airline hubs is analyzed as well as the resulting transfer opportunities during the 1990s. It is found that a temporal concentration trend exists among European airlines with deregulation resulting in the adoption or intensification of wave-system structures by airlines. These wave-system structures, as well as overall traffic growth, have significantly stimulated the number of indirect hub connections. Airline hubs with wave-system structures generally perform better because of the increased indirect connectivity given the number of direct connections.     

The role of London airports in providing connectivity for the UK: regional dependence on foreign hubs

In a context of ongoing debate about the future UK aviation policy and its implications for regional economic development, this paper discusses the role of London Heathrow and the South East airports in providing connectivity for the UK, with particular focus on the international markets that originate from regional UK airports. Using an MIDT dataset of worldwide passenger itineraries served by the European airport network during May 2013, we first establish whether London Heathrow can currently be considered the most important hub for the UK, in terms of traffic generation, connectivity, and centrality, while also measuring the dependence of UK regions on foreign airports and airlines to remain connected with the rest of the world. Results show that, despite the competition, London Heathrow benefits from its massive traffic generation to remain the most central gateway for overall UK air transport markets. However, when only regional markets are considered, significant dependence on foreign hubs appears in many destinations, particularly to Asia–Pacific or the BRIC countries where above 80% of passengers use transfer flights. These results fit nicely with the observed trends of seat de-concentration and hub-bypassing in the airline industry. While dependence on foreign hubs can be interpreted as a sign of vulnerability, there is also the argument that bypassing Heathrow allows regional airports to develop new markets and reduce the level of congestion in the London airport system.     

Factors influencing the hub connectivity of Beijing Capital Airport in its international markets

This paper investigates factors influencing the hub connectivity of Beijing Capital Airport (PEK) in its domestic to international markets between 2014 and 2018 based on a random-effect panel data model. The results show that variables representing the temporal and spatial characteristics of connecting flights have significant impacts on the hub connectivity of PEK. In specific, the changeable threshold of maximum connecting time based on different international destination regions has a negative impact. This paper identifies different timetable coordination modes at PEK and shows that the number of indirect connections under adjacent mode is significantly less than that of distant mode. Circuity and directionality are proven to have significant impacts. In addition, factors representing airport characteristics and heterogeneity of international destination regions also affecting the hub connectivity of PEK.     

Connectivity analysis of transshipments at a cargo hub airport

The paper investigates the interconnectivity of airfreight networks as temporal concentrations at airport. The connectivity of freight transshipments depends on both the quality of connections at hub airports and the quality of indirect flights compared to direct flights. Here connectivity of flight schedules is analyzed using a temporal wave structure to estimate the degrees of connectivity and the quality of connectivity.     

The spatial configuration of airline networks in Europe

The deregulation of US domestic passenger aviation in 1978 resulted in the reconfiguration of airline networks into radial route systems, spatially concentrated around a small number of central airports or ‘hubs’. This paper investigates whether a similar spatial concentration trend can be observed in the European aviation network after deregulation at the airline network level. Using the network concentration index, it is demonstrated that European ‘flag carriers’ already showed a very high traffic concentration rate at the beginning of deregulation. Between 1990 and 1999, the distribution of European traffic of these carriers remained remarkably stable according to the network concentration index. A spatial concentration trend of European traffic on a small number of hubs can only be observed for some regional airlines.     

Measuring connectivity in the air freight industry

In this paper, we present an air transport connectivity model for air freight. For the purposes of this paper, connectivity is defined as all possible direct and indirect connections to or from an airport operated by wide-body aircraft, weighted for the quality of the connection in terms of transhipment and in-flight times. Using this model, we analyse the networks of seven European airports. Europe’s largest hub airports carry most air freight thanks to their extensive intercontinental passenger networks, while smaller airports with a strong focus on air freight carry large amounts of cargo on dedicated freighter aircraft. For air freight operations, the catchment area of an airport is much larger than it is for passenger services, as shipments are being trucked to their departure airport throughout all of mainland Europe. Since there are many airports sharing the same catchment area, potential competition for air freight is fierce. We found that well located regions between the four large European airports have access to large air freight networks, whilst regional air freight connectivity in northern and southern parts of Europe is substantially lower.     

Statistical modelling of runway incursion occurences in the United States

Runway incursions are an important aviation safety concern; between 2002 and 2015 there were 16,785 runway incursions at United States airports ranging in size from small general aviation (GA) to large commercial airline hubs. When examining airports with the 50 highest incursion count over the past 5 years, the predominant categories were large hubs, which accounted for 21 airports and general aviation (GA) airports which accounted for 16 airports. In June 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced the Runway Incursion Mitigation (RIM) program to identify airport risk factors that might contribute to a runway incursion and develop strategies to help airport stakeholders mitigate those risks. Different size airports serve different aircraft fleets, serve different operating volumes, and have different resources available (both funds and technologies) for incursion mitigation. Therefore, it is valuable to determine the correlating factors that affect incursions at different size airports. This paper uses econometrics based modelling techniques to identify statistically significant factors in data provided by the (FAA) public web sites on runway incursions. The model identified statistically significant variables that correlate with incursions, based on severity, for airports categories defined by the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS).The model results indicate that operational incidents (OI) are more likely at large hub airports. In contrast, at GA/non-hub airports, pilot deviations (PD) were significant for less severe incursions (severity C and D). Only one variable, “number of years since 2002”, was found to be significant for all the three airport categories; this variable was correlated with severity A incursions and indicated a statistically significant reduction in severity A incursions, despite an overall 80% increase in incursions between 2002 and 2015.     

Hub competition and travel times in the world-wide airport network

The aim of this work is to measure the competition between airport hubs based on an analysis of travel times in the world-wide airport network. By considering the minimum travel time required to connect each pair of airports, it is possible to create new measures of hub competition, separating the effects of hub position and temporal coordination. This analysis was carried out at the global level, considering all 232 airports with more than 3 million seats yearly offered in departure flights in 2008, and also in relevant geographic markets. The results show a high level of competition among the most important world airports, but the major airports of Europe have a geographical advantage in relation to world markets over the major American and Asian airports. We also show that airports located in different continents often compete for the same origin–destination markets. Geographical position appears to be the most important variable explaining hub performance. Secondary hubs show a higher degree of specialization towards specific markets.     

Variations in hub service in the US domestic air transportation network

This paper looks at the various types of hubs that have evolved in the air transportation network in the USA. Since deregulation of the industry at the end of the 1970s, the major air carriers have expanded their networks to become more competitive, and the number and types of hubs have grown accordingly. A connectivity analysis using a traditional matrix approach is used to derive indices which are the basis for the development of a connectivity classification scheme. In addition, the various service functions of hubs are explored.     

The opening of direct flights across the Taiwan Strait: the impact on the global role of Taiwan’s international airport

Scheduled direct flights between Taiwan and Mainland China were halted for six decades and restarted in December 2008. The Taiwan’s government has a policy of developing Taoyuan International Airport (TPE), the major international airport in Taiwan, as one of main hubs in East Asia, based on the airport’s access to Mainland China. To assess whether the airport is progressing toward meeting the set expectation, this study evaluates the changes in airline networks of the TPE after the opening of direct flights across the Taiwan Strait. The time-dependent earliest arrival time algorithm is applied to global flights in 2004, 2008, and 2012. Empirical evidence demonstrates that providing direct flights across the Taiwan Strait has significantly increased accessibility from TPE to airports in China, but did not improve the centrality of TPE. Additionally, the transfer dependency of TPE on other airports is increasing significantly. This result was based on two major reasons: the first involves the Chinese government’s refusal to allow Chinese citizens to use airports in Taiwan as transfer points to and from other countries and the second reflects the competitiveness among airports and airlines in the region. The key finding is that political exclusion of airline use by external governments via travel regulations adversely influences the development of an airport as a global hub.     

How influential factors affect aviation networks: A Bayesian network analysis

The aviation industry was the catalyst for the economic development of advanced cities, and there has been a close relationship between the development of cities' aviation industries and economic indexes. Researchers have long been interested in investigating which economic factors affect the passenger and cargo volumes of airports. By leveraging statistical analysis, most existing research only indicates the significant factors affecting aviation networks and quantifies the positive or negative relationship between those factors and aviation passenger volume. However, it is difficult to envisage how the degree of changes in economic factors affects aviation networks, especially passenger and cargo volume. This paper utilizes Bayesian network analysis to bridge this gap. The airport-level data collected from OAG was combined with city- or country-level economic data that are exploited to build the Bayesian network. We find that GDP and inflation directly influence passenger and cargo volume, while fuel prices directly influence only cargo volume. Both networks change with time, indicating that evolving external economic factors influence the network. This study is the pioneer in using Bayesian network analysis to analyze aviation networks. We identify how airport passenger and cargo volumes change with respect to different degrees of economic factors change. In addition, the Bayesian network exhibits the output in a probabilistic way to fully address the uncertainty worldwide. The findings could potentially facilitate policymakers’ decisions to improve global aviation network development.     

A study of the site selection of a civil airport based on the risk of bird strikes: The case of Dalian,China

Bird strikes are a potential danger to aviation security. The threat of birds to the flight security of civil airplanes is hard to solve if the existence of birds in nature is ignored. An in-depth study on the living habits of birds and the request for a harmonious coexistence between birds and civil airplanes seems to be an effective way to relieve this contradiction. Taking the case of the site selection of the civil airport in Dalian of China, this paper comprehensively analysed the bird strike assessment of various species of birds near the sites of Zhoushuizi Airport and Jinzhou Bay Airport. The assessment of the risk of bird strikes demonstrated that the site of the Jinzhou Bay airport would have a smaller risk of bird strikes, which could greatly reduce collisions between birds and airplanes and promote aviation security. Such results provide a valuable reference for the site selection of the civil airport in Dalian. As bird strikes are a common problem in the field of civil aviation, the analysis and methods in this paper are a needed reference for the planning and land use of civil airports in other cities.     

Connectivity of the European airport network: “Self-help hubbing” and business implications

This paper investigates the connectivity of the European air transportation network. A time-dependent minimum path approach is employed to calculate the minimum travel time between each pair of airports in the network, inclusive of flight times and waiting times. The connectivity offered by each alliance's network is compared with that of the overall network. The results show that roughly two-thirds of the fastest indirect connections are not operated by the alliance system; this could be exploited to enable a new passenger strategy of “self-help hubbing”.     

Inter-city connections in China: High-speed train vs. inter-city coach

High-speed train (HST) and inter-city coach (ICC) have been two important ground transportation modes for travelling between cities in China. They influence inter-city connections significantly. This study uses HST's and ICC's timetable data to construct networks; evaluates city centrality and city-pair connectivity to compare the hierarchical structures. The results show that the HST network shows linear distribution characteristics while ICC network presents regional “core-periphery” structure. Provincial administrative boundaries have an obvious constraint on the ICC network, while the HST community structure follows the railway lines' distribution. Finally, this study illustrates the spatial organization model and gives implications for regional transportation planning.     

Hierarchical multimodal hub location problem with time-definite deliveries

Hierarchical multimodal hub location problem is a cost-minimizing hub covering problem where two types of hubs and hub links, accounting for ground and air transportation, are to be established, while ensuring time-definite deliveries. We propose a mixed-integer programming formulation and perform a comprehensive sensitivity analysis on the Turkish network. We show that the locations of airport hubs are less sensitive to the cost parameters compared to the locations of ground hubs and it is possible to improve the service quality at not much additional cost in the resulting multimodal networks. Our methodology provides the means for a detailed trade-off analysis.     

An exploratory study into airport choice factors for European low-cost airlines

Low-cost carriers are an increasingly important part of the European aviation industry. Airport choice is a crucial factor in determining their success or failure. While research has been conducted into airport choice factors, their relative rankings have not previously been investigated. This paper addresses this through an exploratory survey of eight European low-cost airlines. The paper finds that demand for low-cost services is the most important choice factor, with aeronautical charges ranked fourth. Further analysis reveals different requirements depending upon airline characteristics. This implies that airport managers need to tailor their service offering to individual low-cost airlines rather than treating the sector uniformly.     

From hub to tourist destination – An explorative study of Singapore and Dubai's aviation-based transformation

The growth of air transport networks and deregulation have allowed small, low-populated places like Singapore and Dubai to become major international tourism destinations. Both have used tightly combined airline, airport and tourism strategies to help achieve this. Here we analyse developments in Singapore and Dubai by examining interactions between their airlines, airports, governments and tourism authorities, and how integrated management strategies leveraged their aviation traffic hubs to develop tourism destinations.