Li Siping, Zhou Yaoming, Kundu Tanmoy, Zhang Fangni
Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
The Logistics Institute - Asia Pacific, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Transp Res E Logist Transp Rev. 2021 Aug;152:102411. doi: 10.1016/j.tre.2021.102411. Epub 2021 Jun 23.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted the air transport network (ATN) globally. Policies to restrict international passenger arrivals adopted by many countries are effective responses to control the spread of the virus. This paper studies the impact of two entry restriction policies implemented by some countries against international travelers during COVID-19, i.e., direct flight suspension and complete entry suspension, on the international connectivity (IC) of ATNs. Firstly, the concept of international air transport network (IATN) is defined, and a novel weighted IC index for ATNs is proposed considering flight frequency. Furthermore, to systematically analyze the difference between two policies, the hierarchical structure of the IATN is investigated, followed by studying the change of the IC index assuming different countries impose the two policies. Taking China as an example, this paper evaluates the influence of two policies based on real policy implementation of some countries against travelers from China. Besides, the critical countries affecting the IC are identified, and the network robustness is assessed. Implications for assessing and ranking the impact of different countries under different policies are provided and discussed. Lastly, two extensions are presented to discuss the impact of partial suspension and response actions such as air travel bubble. This work is one of the first to study the impact of country-to-country disconnection on air transport connectivity and deepens our understanding of the performance of ATNs during emergencies.
新冠疫情严重影响了全球航空运输网络（ATN）。许多国家采取的限制国际旅客入境政策是控制病毒传播的有效应对措施。本文研究了新冠疫情期间一些国家针对国际旅客实施的两项入境限制政策，即直航停飞和全面入境禁令，对航空运输网络国际连通性（IC）的影响。首先，定义了国际航空运输网络（IATN）的概念，并提出了一种考虑航班频次的新型航空运输网络加权连通性指数。此外，为系统分析两项政策的差异，研究了国际航空运输网络的层次结构，接着假设不同国家实施这两项政策，研究连通性指数的变化。以中国为例，本文基于一些国家对来自中国旅客的实际政策实施情况，评估了这两项政策的影响。此外，确定了影响连通性的关键国家，并评估了网络稳健性。给出并讨论了在不同政策下评估不同国家影响及排名的启示。最后，提出了两个扩展内容，以讨论部分停飞以及诸如航空旅行气泡等应对措施的影响。这项工作是最早研究国家间断连对航空运输连通性影响的研究之一，加深了我们对紧急情况下航空运输网络性能的理解。
