Global Airline Networks: Comparative Nodal Access Measures

One strategy for making sense of airline network complexity is to assess the empirical network against an appropriate benchmark. The purpose of this paper is to develop and use well known measurements of betweenness and to deploy them in the context of airline transportation nets. The paper demonstrates some structural differences that emerge in larger networks. Selected extreme values are computed, as benchmarks, from a hypothetical ideal hub network. Actual values are shown to largely comport with these expectations, but there are numerous and interesting exceptions.