On the ramifications of airspace bans in aero-political conflicts: Towards a country importance ranking

The aviation industry is facing highly volatile developments in the recent years: Following a steady growth phase with prosperous projections, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the aviation system rather hard. While having gradually entered a recovery process in the years 2021 and 2022, with load factors close to those in the year 2019, the airspace bans between Russia, Europe, and other regions in the world, as part of the ongoing conflict centered around Russia and Ukraine, threaten the orderly operation of flights. This study explores the byproducts and potential impact of airspace bans on the aviation system and its stakeholders, by deriving a ranking of country importance and how they have the potential to influence our aviation system. While being rooted in the analysis of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, our framework is built up in a generic way and computes an overall country importance metric. We believe that our study contributes to the better understanding of the consequences airspace bans have on our society and the severe needs for effective policies and regulations of such emerging forms of conflict resolution.