On the contagion leakage via incoming flights during China's aviation policies in the fight against COVID-19

Sebastian Wandelt; Xiaoqian Sun; Anming Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jairtraman.2023.102377

On the contagion leakage via incoming flights during China's aviation policies in the fight against COVID-19

J Air Transp Manag. 2023 May:108:102377. doi: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2023.102377. Epub 2023 Feb 7.

Authors

Sebastian Wandelt^{1

2}, Xiaoqian Sun¹, Anming Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ National Key Laboratory of CNS/ATM, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, 100191 Beijing, China.
² School of Global Governance, Beijing Institute of Technology, 100811, Beijing, China.
³ Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Abstract

For nearly three years with the COVID-19 pandemic, China has implemented a set of strict policies to control the flux of potential virus carriers in cross-border flights: The so-called Circuit Breaker mechanism. In this study, we review the evolution of this mechanism - a rather unique experiment in the global aviation system - from a data-driven perspective. Specifically, we perform an investigation on the extent of violations and their potential drivers. In total, 183 events are analyzed covering the period from epidemic outbreak in early 2020 to December 2021. In addition to describing the spatial extent and temporal evolution, we develop a regression model which helps us to better understand the universal patterns. By dissecting an under-investigated phenomenon, we believe that our study contributes to the rich literature on aviation and COVID-19, not only in the specific context of China, but also by assessing some of the challenges and potential of containing a global health threat using strict aviation policies.

Keywords: Aviation; Aviation policies; China; Pandemic.