Structure and External Factors of Chinese City Airline Network

We investigate the structural properties of Chinese city airline network (CCAN), where nodes and edges denote cities and direct flights. The degree distribution follows a double power law and a clear hierarchical layout is observed. The population exhibits a weakly positive correlation with the number of flights, yet it does not show obvious correlation with the transportation flow. The distance is an important parameter in CCAN, that is, the number of flights decays fast with the increasing of the distance. In comparison, the tertiary industry has the most important influence on the Chinese air passenger transportation. Statistically speaking, when the tertiary industry value increases by 1%, the next period's volume will increase by 0.73%. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd