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Air transportation is a mode of transport developed specifically to provide access to long-distance destinations that may otherwise be infeasible or at least more difficult to reach. Accordingly, there are distinct aspects of air travel that require consideration when assessing accessibility by air transportation, which are not addressed in general local accessibility studies. This paper reviews studies of accessibility by air transportation. The studies in question were published in academic journals, and we analysed them using the broad theoretical framework of accessibility of Geurs and van Wee [Accessibility evaluation of land-use and transport strategies: Review and research directions. Journal of Transport Geography, 12(2), 127–140]. We discuss the characteristics of accessibility by air transportation to consider when designing research, as well as trends and knowledge gaps in the existing literature. An important gap is that, while there is a growing interest towards perceived accessibility by air transportation, accessibility measures based on this perspective have not yet been applied yet. Additionally, the literature is largely focused on the transport and land-use components of accessibility as opposed to the individual and temporal components. We finish by discussing the benefits and drawbacks of directly applying conventional accessibility measures for research on accessibility by air transportation, as well as options to modify the temporal component of conventional person-based accessibility measures for better applicability in the air travel context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our societies struggle to provide a good life for all without overconsuming environmental resources. Consequently, scholarly search for approaches to meet environmental and social goals of sustainability have become popular. In transport research, accessibility is a key tool to characterise linkages between people, transport, and land use. In the current paper, we propose a conceptual framework for measuring just accessibility within planetary boundaries. We reviewed transport studies and discovered a substantial literature body on accessibility and social disadvantage, much vaster compared to the literature around environmental and ecological impacts of accessibility. We also show a gap in approaches that have integrated these two perspectives. Building on the review, we suggest a conceptual framework for incorporating environmental and social sustainability goals in accessibility research. We conclude the paper by pointing to key challenges and research avenues related to the framework, including (i) dealing with uncertainty and complexity in socio-ecological thresholds, (ii) integrating environmental limits into the conceptualisations of transport equity, (iii) measuring accessibility through other costs than travel time, and (iv) integrating both quantitative and qualitative data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]