“…Air travel demand is generated by other activities at the destinations (Grosche, Rothlauf, and Heinzl, ); thus, this study attempts to identify all the key factors that determine air patronage between city pairs before exploring the association between railway development and air patronage. Theoretically, factors influencing air patronage between city pairs are categorized into two types: geo‐economic and service‐related (Rengaraju and Arasan, ; Ghobrial and Kanafani, ; Jorge‐Calderon, ; Grosche et al, ; Loo, Ho and Wong, ). Geo‐economic factors are determined by the economic and geographical characteristics of the origin and destination cities, including income, population, percentage of university degree holders, percentage of full‐time employees, employment composition, characteristics of regional productive structure, distance, proximity of competing airport(s), and intermodal competition.…”