May 25, 2005
PARIS is the world's most vital hub for international air travel, now being likened to the Internet.
And Singapore figures fourth on a list, in a study conducted by a team of researchers from Northwestern University, US, reported AP. We're immediately after London, which is third, and before New York.
But what is Anchorage, Alaska doing in second place?
It's the city's centrality, that's what - a rating of the shortest paths connecting any two cities that involve a transfer at a particular city.
The researchers found that the busiest locations are not always the most important for the network.
Anchorage has non-stop flights to 39 other cities, far fewer than the 242 cities connected to London non-stop.
But it edges London and Singapore in the vital measure of centrality - a rating of the shortest paths connecting any two cities that involve a transfer at a particular city.
This is what boosts the importance of cities like it and Port Moresby, Papua-New Guinea (PNG), which serve as connection hubs between many other airports and international connections, the researchers explained.
Like Anhcorage, many Pacific islands are connected by air, and Port Moresby is the hub that links many of them to the outside. That places PNG's capital seventh on the worldwide list, ahead of such busy places as Frankfurt, Tokyo and Moscow.
The connections among 3,883 communities with airports around the world were analysed by the team by associate professor Luis Amaral of the university's Chemical and Biological Engineering faculty.
-The New Paper