High-Order Community Detection in the Air Transport Industry: A Comparative Analysis among 10 Major International Airlines

Community detection in a complex network is an ongoing field. While the air transport network has gradually formed as a complex system, the topological and geographical characteristics of airline networks have become crucial in understanding the network dynamics and airports’ roles. This research tackles the highly interconnected parts in weighted codeshare networks. A dataset comprising ten major international airlines is selected to conduct a comparative analysis. The result confirms that the clique percolation method can be used in conjunction with other metrics to shed light on air transport network topology, recognizing patterns of inter- and intra-community connections. Moreover, the topological detection results are interpreted and explained from a transport geographical perspective, with the physical airline network structure. As complex as it may seem, the airline network tends to be a relatively small system with only a few high-order communities, which can be characterized by geographical constraints. This research also contributes to the literature by capturing new insights regarding the topological patterns of the air transport industry. Particularly, it reveals the wide hub-shifting phenomenon and the possibility of airlines with different business models sharing an identical topology profile.