Airport systems in Japan and the UK: Insights from the power law

The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of a power law to the geographical distribution of airports, focusing on domestic passenger traffic in Japan and the UK. After estimating the Pareto exponents using a rank–size regression from the three perspectives of airport traffic, route traffic and interairport distance, this paper examines the competitive or complementary relationship among airports. It analyses route traffic for domestic passengers using a gravity model. The results show and compare how airport systems are shaped in these two countries. The paper sheds light on the power law and refines our understanding of the mechanism underpinning the geographical distribution of airports.