Topology and survivability analysis for flight flow networks

Abstract

In this paper we study the survivability feature of airline networks. To measure survivability, we comprehensively consider the network structure measures such as degree distribution, average path length, clustering coefficient, and density; the centrality metrics such as degree centrality and betweenness centrality; as well as the connectivity measures such as maximum connected subgraph size and overall efficiency. Taking three listed China airline companies as examples, namely Air China, China Southern Airlines, and China Eastern Airlines, we provide mass number of simulations to test the survivability of the three companies under random attacks and malicious attacks. The results depict the scale-free features of such networks without small-world characteristics, while the attack simulations reflect the survivability of airline networks clearly. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to provide case studies for airline networks of individual airline companies in China, which has both theoretical and practical significance in related areas.