COVID-19 and Airlines: A Final Analysis Through the Lens of Complex Networks

The COVID-19 pandemic, having emerged early in the year 2020, had a devastating impact on the whole aviation industry. Airlines were particularly hit hard, given unprecedented border closures, the inability to adapt to highly volatile demand, and an embarrassing lack of overall pandemic preparedness. As of summer 2022, the airline industry seems on the track of strong recovery, with many airlines returning to profits and passenger numbers occasionally exceeding those of pre-COVID-19 levels. This study investigates the induced pandemic cycle, from January 2020 to December 2022, through tools from the network science literature. We model airline networks as a collection of nodes, representing airports, and a collection of links, representing direct flights between airports. This analysis has a strong focus on spatiotemporal evolution of airlines worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a comprehensive description of network science effects and counter measures during this excessive health and economic shock. Such an analysis could be helpful for better dealing with future pandemics, which are likely to emerge, if potential lessons learned are not implemented by the aviation industry.