Analysis of Delay Propagation in China: From Complex Network Theory Perspective

Abstract

This paper build a delay propagation network consisting of 260 airports and apply complex network theory to explore the mechanism of delay propagation in China. Measures including degree, degree distribution, and average path length and clustering coefficient are calculated and the results indicate that the delay propagation network has both scale-free and small-world characteristics. We also explore the characterization of local and network delays on single airport with a separation method and the results show that the short-term flight delays are mainly caused by local delays while the long-term flight delays are strongly related with network delays. Moreover, the large airports are affected by many upstream delays while affect few downstream airports. Finally, we propose different prevention strategies and explore how they alleviate delay propagation in the network.