Resilience of the national airspace system structure: A data-driven network approach

In the context of air transportation growth, it has become essential to better manage the rising congestion levels and their potential ripple effects throughout the entire airspace. The present paper aims at examining the resilience of the National Airspace System. Through a data-based network model, the main choke points of the system are identified and their importance is quantified for better monitoring of congestion growth and propagation. The study relies on data-mining and network science techniques to analyze sector-level traffic patterns. The dynamic aspects of time and traffic load are examined and the notion of core subnetwork is discussed. Finally, the robustness of the network is studied under different attack strategies, highlighting potential vulnerabilities.