COVID-19 impact in the Brazilian Multiplex Air Transportation Network

The Brazilian Air Transportation Network has been changing in the last years, due to an economic recession since 2016, the concession of the main airports and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Air transportation is a complex infrastructure system, in which each airline represents a different layer. Adding the weight of interactions combined with a multilayer approach can make the network description even more detailed than a single-layer analysis, because important network features emerge from the multilayer character. The multilayer approach for complex networks is yet new in the literature. As far as the authors know, there are no studies yet applying multiplex network to analyze domestic and international Brazilian air network to improve the understanding of complex systems and investigate macroeconomic effects of the economic recession and COVID-19 pandemic in the air network. The objective of this paper is to evaluate changes in the Brazilian Air Transportation network from 2019 to 2020, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, using topology measures for network characterization. We compared the network topology and evaluated COVID-19 impact on airports under concession and on regional aviation, also comparing with the aggregated approach. Results show a network concentration during this period in hub airports, reduced connectivity and reduced density resulting in a sparser network. The airlines strategies were different over this period and the multilayer approach changed the importance ranking of airports compared with the aggregated approach. These analyses indicate an opportunity to improve regional air transportation and the need to enhance regional airports versatility.