Search

• Performance of airports relates to underlying patterns of economic development, airport size and aircraft used. • Airports have a high reduction potential of CO 2 emission, without a loss of economic performance. • Airport size, location, and linkage to the local economy are closely related to aircraft CO 2 emissions. • Different stakeholders have different impacts on adding to sustainable development. This paper analyzes aircraft CO 2 emissions (in both quantity and intensity per passenger) during landing and take-off cycles at nine different airports in Jiangsu province (China) over a ten-year time span (2007–2016). Our database is unique and very detailed in that we combine flight schedules, with aircraft type (engines) used, and landing-and-take-off cycles. We are particularly interested in how the spatial characteristics impact emission levels. To this end we estimate a CO 2 emission model taking the airport characteristics into account, and apply a spatial classification and autocorrelation model to distinguish between different types of airports and systems. Our analysis shows that: (1) there are strong spatial distribution differences between airports due to the patterns of economic development, airport size and aircraft used; (2) most airports have a high reduction potential of CO 2 emission, without a loss of economic performance; (3) significant spatial aggregation effects exist and are persistent during most observational years, which indicates a strong Matthew effect of CO 2 emission within Jiangsu province; and (4) airport size, linkage to the local economy, and airport location are closely related to aircraft CO 2 emissions. We also provide a number of recommendations to improve airport CO 2 emissions and add to sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new formulation to measure the resilience performance of airports under severe weather events was developed. • A big data based on actual air performance was adopted for the empirical analysis. • Modal substitution to HSR service is found to be an important tactic of airport resilience. The increased severe weather events in recent years as a result of global climate change has created a substantial challenge for aviation system operation. Although transportation engineers and planners have attempted to improve system resilience through the adaptation of new technologies and the implementation of various strategies to achieve effective risk management, it remains unclear how resilience performance (measured by the speed of recovery) of airports varies in different severe weather events and what factors may explain such variations. This paper addresses these fundamental questions using the aviation system in China as an example. A resilience metric, which reflects the speed of recovery (bounce back) from a shock, was developed to measure the performance of airport resilience under various severe weather conditions. In addition, an empirical econometric analysis was conducted based on a dataset that includes both detailed aviation performance and weather conditions for the period of October 2016 – September 2017. The research findings show that airport resilience to severe weather events does vary substantially based on factors, such as weather conditions, airport capacity, and the level of modal substitution. In particular, the recovery time of air services in central and south China tends to be relatively longer in thunderstorms than other weather conditions. The study also confirms that modal substitution is a very effective resilience tactic of the transportation system as the recovery speed of air service was found to be faster by 22.9% if an alternative mode, such as high-speed rail (HSR) service was also available in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]