Analyzing the system features of the flight delays: A network perspective

Air transport is a key infrastructure of modern societies. In this paper, we introduce the complex network theory to the air transport system, through which we discuss possible networks that can be defined for the air transports connected by flights. Since on-time performance is an important indictor for the airline service. Particularly, we analyze both the system features of network generated by the flight as a whole and the features of network generated by the delayed flights, through which, we can draw some information from a novel perspective of network about the air flight routes as well as the busy airports having heavy influence on the flight on-time performance.