堂前 光司

The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of a power law to the geographical distribution of airports, focusing on domestic passenger traffic in Japan and the UK. After estimating the Pareto exponents using a rank–size regression from the three perspectives of airport traffic, route traffic and interairport distance, this paper examines the competitive or complementary relationship among airports. It analyses route traffic for domestic passengers using a gravity model. The results show and compare how airport systems are shaped in these two countries. The paper sheds light on the power law and refines our understanding of the mechanism underpinning the geographical distribution of airports.

The main purpose of our research is to explore the dynamic change of hub status for four cities in the Middle East (Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Istanbul) from an international air passenger traffic perspective, with a special focus on the intercontinental air transport market between Europe and Asia. The research examines the international air passenger traffic flows between Europe and Asia, from/to the Middle East to/from these two regions and within these two regions, and, in turn, assesses the hub status of these four cities against European and Asian hubs over the last thirty-five years from 1982 to 2016. It employs a gravity model composed of GDP, population and distance, incorporating a hub effect as an explanatory factor of its level of international air passenger traffic movements. The empirical results of the research confirm the dynamic change of air traffic hub status for cities in the intercontinental air transport market between Europe and Asia, demonstrating a much stronger presence of Dubai and Doha as an international air traffic hub over this period.