Classifying airports according to their hub dimensions: an application to the US domestic network

Abstract

Government agencies classify airports for different purposes, including the allocation of public funding for capacity developments. In a context of hub classification, determining the contribution of each airport to the national network in terms of the two dimensions of "hubbing", i.e. traffic generation and connectivity, is a key aspect. However, the choice of an appropriate indicator of airport connectivity is still an unresolved issue. This paper contributes to the existing literature by adapting the well-known flow centrality indicator to an air transport context and thus developing a novel measure of airport connectivity. An application to the US airport network is provided, using quarterly data on passenger demand to perform a detailed time-series analysis of airport connectivity patterns between 1993 and 2012. The suitability of our flow-based indicator, against other commonly used centrality measures, is assessed by testing their sensibility to the major cases of airline de-hubbing in the US. The flow-based indicator is then used to define an alternative airport classification method within the context of the Federal Aviation Administration´s National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS). Results show that there is potential for improving the existing regulatory airport classification by taking connectivity into consideration.

Container port competitiveness and connectivity: The Canary Islands main ports case

“…Rodríguez-Déniz et al, 2013), in order to take advantage of as many variables as possible (vessel frequency, TEUs and geographical distance).…”

Global spatial organisation of air transport: The definition of functional airline regions

“…The ambiguity of results based on connectivity measures has been proved at the level of the US airline network (Rodríguez-Déniz et al, 2012). Although more sophisticated calculations of betweenness, closeness, and eigenvector centrality of nodes could be calculated, these methods would significantly favour airports in regions with a high intensity of air transport, and they would handicap airports in regions with a relatively low intensity of air transport.…”

Spatial Analysis of Single Allocation Hub Location Problems

“…The concepts of connectivity and centrality (and related measures) have a long and rich history in analysis of social, communication and transportation networks (e.g., Garrison 1960, Kissling 1969, Freeman 1978. More recently, Rodríguez-Déniz et al (2013) highlight the roles of traffic generation and connectivity in distinguishing types of hubs. The traffic generation capability of a node or region is often measured based on demand (e.g., passengers originating and destined for a city) or economic measures.…”

“…However, the concept of connectivity has been measured in a variety of ways, such as centrality, intermediacy and "betweenness" (see Rodríguez-Déniz et al 2013) and locational attributes of these measures exist for a set of cities independent of how they are connected via a particular network (see for example , Fleming and Hayuth 1994, Bowen 2012and Maertens et al 2014). The discussion above highlights the important roles of the demand magnitude (e.g., city size or passenger enplanements) and geography (i.e., measures of relative node locations) for identifying good potential hub locations.…”

“…Aggregating the travel demand provides the basis for demand at a particular city. While the effect of traffic generation from the network design and hub locations can be important (see for example, O'Kelly 2010 andRodríguez-Déniz et al 2013), that is beyond the scope of this research. By using fundamental properties based on the cities' demand and location, we propose a model that provides useful insights on the spatial aspects of hub location.…”