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Airline Network Structure: Motifs and Airports’ Role in Cliques

Author

Listed:
  • Huijuan Yang

    (College of Civil Aviation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 213300, China
    College of Airport Engineering, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618300, China)

  • Meilong Le

    (College of Civil Aviation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 213300, China)

  • Di Wang

    (Admissions Office, Tianfu New Area General Aviation Profession Academy, Chengdu 620500, China)

Abstract

The air transport system can be considered to be a complex network with airports as vertices and direct flights as edges. Research in this area contributes to the optimisation of the airline network and the sustainable development in transportation. This study chose Air China as an example to discover the dynamics of the airline network topologically. Serving as a critical agent of social and economic connections between cities, the airline network structure evolves over time. However, Air China maintains its multicentric and hierarchical structure and forms a mature point-to-point network with codeshare partners. This research also extracts key players at the airport level and investigates the topological structure of highly connected cliques. The results show that the combination of airports in the cliques may be affected by the airline capacity, traffic rights and interline cooperation. Meanwhile, smaller airports appear more often in cliques than hub airports, which can be interpreted and justified with slot limits at mega-airports. The weighted clique percolation method provides new insights to detecting overlapping communities, which can be characterized by geographical constraints. The shared vertices in the combined codeshare network indicate the possible hub shifting in the constantly changing aviation sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Huijuan Yang & Meilong Le & Di Wang, 2021. "Airline Network Structure: Motifs and Airports’ Role in Cliques," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-14, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:17:p:9573-:d:621762
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Yang, Huijuan & Buire, Clara & Delahaye, Daniel & Le, Meilong, 2024. "A heuristic-based multi-objective flight schedule generation framework for airline connectivity optimisation in bank structure: An empirical study on Air China in Chengdu," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    2. Zongbei Shi & Honghai Zhang & Yike Li & Jinlun Zhou, 2023. "Air Traffic Sector Network: Motif Identification and Resilience Evaluation Based on Subgraphs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-19, September.

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