Geographical specialization and connectivity of air passenger flows from Northern Europe to Asia and US

Abstract

This paper analyzes the airline network geography of Northern Europe and intercontinental passenger flows to Asia and US. Airline companies and alliances organize themselves according to economic principles attempting to reconcile their profitability, state control, and the passenger needs. States have interests in controlling airline transportation, because the connectivity of cities functions as an instrument for local economic development. Cities as nodes can be characterized by their linkages as central or intermediate. Our paper presents two estimations of international airline connectivity from the cities of Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Riga, and Stockholm. The data concerns passenger seats per flight per destination. Connectivity was measured based on a network analysis. A gravity model was also formulated to explain divergent geography of the airline connections. The major connecting hub in the region remains Copenhagen, with most connective links to US hubs. The results indicate that the most important factors in the explanation of the total traffic include population, GDP and distance. The resulting geography of connectivity elaborates the competition among the Nordic airports. Copenhagen and Stockholm have the most similar destination palettes and the SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) hub overlaps are evident. Helsinki has the strongest profile towards Asian destinations. The geographical divergence of the flight hub specialization is essentially visible in the case of studied intercontinental flights.