The form of global aviation market space in the context of the epidemic

ABSTRACT

There are many mismatches between international aviation circuit breakers/ maintenance and the stringency index and severity of the outbreak in the origin or destination country in the context of COVID-19. Under the background of the global outbreak of COVID19, in addition to the reasons for the stage of epidemic transmission, prevention-control environment and testing/treatment methods, the underlying impact on the global aviation market its own cannot be ignored. Based on market space theory and market network relationship analysis methods, as well as the international routes, flight volume/frequency/seat capacity and airport operation data of the six major global airline markets for four representative periods from 2019 to 2020, this paper intends to analyze the form of the global aviation market space under the background of the epidemic. The conclusions are as follows. In the process of shrinking the global route network, the original major aviation connections from Western Europe to North America and those from China, Japan to South Korea and the United States have not changed. The developed economies/emerging economies have shown the existence of spatial aggregation. South America has maintained a clear-pointed route to North America and at the same time, a large number of routes to Europe have been cut off. Oceania has increased the use of hub airports in Southeast Asia to maintain routes to Europe and the United States. Market-dependent countries have shown the existence of spatial duality. Aggregate and dual markets highlight the dominant role of the economic landscape. The relatively independent existence of space is strongly influenced by the "regional model", and the aviation market shaping inside and outside the regional alliance is completely different with the European Union, the African Union, and the ASEAN as typical cases. Culturally neighboring countries show the existence of compact connected communities. There are clear manifestations between China-Japan-South Korea, ASEAN to China-Japan-South Korea and Northeast Africa to Arab countries, which are supported by the potential support of cultural and local sensitivity to maintain a high frequency of flights. The above changes in aviation connectivity demonstrate the persistence of inherent aviation value chains and their reinforcing effect on the forms of existence of global aviation market space. It is necessary to explore the economicgeographical implications of the forms of existence of the global aviation market space in depth under the background of the COVID-19 epidemic reinterpret the assertions related to the market space existence forms dominated by globalization in recent years. © 2023, Science Press. All rights reserved.