A Comparative Study on Flight Delay Networks of the USA and China

Recent studies have characterized the structures of air transport network in different countries and regions using complex network metrics. These studies coincided with the trend of increasingly available large empirical flight datasets that enable researchers to investigate the dynamics of the system, such as the propagation of flight delay. However, linking network structure with network dynamics remains a challenging task. In this paper, we proposed a method to construct flight delay networks from operational data. We provided a detailed comparison of the key structural properties of the flight delay networks in the United States and China. The comparisons of betweenness centrality of delay networks and flight networks show the advantage of the proposed method. We further found that airports in similar geographical locations do exhibit similar delay patterns in both countries. To explore the underlying mechanisms, the Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MF-DFA) is applied to the flights' delay time series at both the airport level and network level. Singularity spectra analyses reveal the fundamental characteristics of the airport systems and air transportation system. Our findings contribute to the understanding of structure and dynamics of air transportation systems.