Mapping the spatial organisation of air transport network by WENA-MLST analysis

AbstractDue to the airline hubs’ organisation such as linkage, hierarchical structure, and hub-and-spoke remains a mystery at a global scale. Thereby, the research aims to unravel the spatial organisation of airline hubs in the air transport network (ATN) by using weighted ego network analysis (WENA), Ht-index, and maximum leaf spanning tree (MLST) at multi-scales. The findings provide valuable insights into the status of different regional cities in the ATN and the critical relationship between hubs and their associated spokes. The result shows that the ATN is a legibly hierarchical network, and three types of airline hubs, i.e. global, international, and regional hubs have been identified. Additionally, the study reveals that the ATN is made up of several regional hub-and-spoke systems, where hubs dominate their subgraphs, with range and geographical proximity effects are observed. Finally, the role of airline hubs as international gateways and domestic hubs is also noted.KEYWORDS: Airline hubshierarchical structurehub-and-spoke system Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 MAR is defined as a cluster of two or more major commercial airports in a metropolitan area (O'Connor and Fuellhart Citation2016; Wong et al. Citation2019).2 https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2018t.html3 This article refers to Alpha-rated cities in the GAWC, which are also known as world's first-tier cities.4 Single hub-and-spoke means that the hub is the only interacting node directly connected to other nodes, double-hub network means that there are two competing hubs in the system and have a strong airline connection between them, and multiple-hub network means that there are more than two hubs in the system, and the presence of multiple paths provides more choice and convenience for passengers, and hierarchical hub-and-spoke means that there is a hierarchy between the hubs of the spoke system (Chou Citation1990).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.42171179; 42171420), and the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.21ZR1419600).