Cascading failures in airport networks

Abstract

Cascading failure phenomena can appear in complex networks that distribute flows of information, people or goods, when flow going through nodes or edges exceeds the capacity of network nodes or edges. Cascading failure models from previous research are not adequate for airport networks, as flow is not continuous, and load has to be redistributed among close airports, rather than previously existing connections. With these constraints in mind, we have defined an algorithm to simulate the management of cascading failures in airport networks. We use the algorithm to evaluate the effectiveness of several selection rules of alternative departure and arrival airports to affected flights to reduce the impact of the cascading failure. We have applied the algorithm to the Oceanic Airport Network to assess the impact of several incidents. Results show that selection rules of arriving airports have significant impact in reducing the effect of incidents affecting central airports.