Structural evolution of the Brazilian airport network

Abstract

The aviation sector is profitable, but sensitive to economic fluctuations, geopoliticalconstraints and governmental regulations. As for other means of transportation, therelation between origin and destination results in a complex map of routes, which can becomplemented with information associated with the routes themselves, for instance,frequency, traffic load and distance. The theory of networks provides a natural frameworkfor investigating the dynamics on the resulting structure. Here, we investigate the structureand evolution of the Brazilian airport network (BAN) as regards several quantities: routes,connections, passengers and cargo. Some structural features are in accordance withprevious results for other airport networks. The analysis of the evolution of the BANshows that its structure is dynamic, with changes in the relative relevance ofsome airports and routes. The results indicate that the connections converge tospecific routes. The network shrinks at the route level but grows in number ofpassengers and amount of cargo, which more than doubled during the periodstudied.