Intractable delays occur in air traffic due to the imbalance between ever-increasing air traffic demand and limited airspace capacity. As air traffic is associated with complex air transport systems, delays can be magnified and propagated throughout these systems, resulting in the emergent behavior known as delay propagation. An understanding of delay propagation dynamics is pertinent to modern air traffic management. In this work, we present a complex network perspective of delay propagation dynamics. Specifically, we model air traffic scenarios using spatial–temporal networks with airports as the nodes. To establish the dynamic edges between the nodes, we develop a delay propagation method and apply it to a given set of air traffic schedules. Based on the constructed spatial-temporal networks, we suggest three metrics—magnitude, severity, and speed—to gauge delay propagation dynamics. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we carry out case studies on domestic flights in the Southeastern Asia region (SAR) and the United States. Experiments demonstrate that the propagation magnitude in terms of the number of flights affected by delay propagation and the amount of propagated delays for the US traffic are respectively five and ten times those of the SAR. Experiments further reveal that the propagation speed for US traffic is eight times faster than that of the SAR. The delay propagation dynamics reveal that about six hub airports in the SAR have significant propagated delays, while the situation in the United States is considerably worse, with a corresponding number of around 16. This work provides a potent tool for tracing the evolution of air traffic delays.

由于不断增加的空中交通需求和有限的空域容量之间的不平衡，空中交通出现了难以处理的延误。由于空中交通与复杂的航空运输系统相关联，延误会在这些系统中被放大和传播，从而导致称为延误传播的紧急行为。对延迟传播动态的理解与现代空中交通管理有关。在这项工作中，我们展示了延迟传播动力学的复杂网络视角。具体来说，我们使用以机场为节点的时空网络对空中交通场景进行建模。为了建立节点之间的动态边，我们开发了一种延迟传播方法并将其应用于一组给定的空中交通时刻表。根据构建的时空网络，我们建议三个指标-幅度，严重性，和速度——衡量延迟传播动态。为了验证所提出方法的有效性，我们对东南亚地区 (SAR) 和美国的国内航班进行了案例研究。实验表明，美国交通受延误传播影响的航班数量和传播延误量的传播幅度分别是SAR的5倍和10倍。实验进一步表明，美国交通的传播速度比 SAR 快八倍。延误传播动态显示，SAR 大约有 6 个枢纽机场有明显的传播延误，而美国的情况要糟糕得多，相应的数量约为 16。这项工作为追踪空中交通演变提供了有力工具延误。