Global Air Cargo Flows Estimation Based on OD Trade Data

Abstract

Where a relatively small part (less than 1%) by volume of world trade is represented by air transport, the orientation towards high value products results in a share of almost 35% of international trade in value. But where data of the amount of trade between countries is highly available, the actual routing of those traded goods is not known at the moment. This means that up until today it is unknown for airlines, airports, forwarders and other important stakeholders how trade between countries have been flown. This research includes the development of a model to estimate yearly air cargo flows over the global air transport network by using country-to-country air trade data. The novelty in this model lies in the fact that this is the first model in academic literature that estimates air cargo flows in such a detailed airport-to-airport level. Both on the demand side of the model as on the supply side very granular data is used. O/D air trade data on country-to-country level is the main demand input, where route choices are based on scheduled flight services reported by the airline, serve as supply input. model framework