Airport passenger flow, urban development and nearby airport capacity dynamic correlation: 2006-2019 time-series data analysis for Tianjin city, China

Airports, as integral components of the global aviation industry, experience dynamic changes in air passenger traffic load, which are also related to the trends of local urban development and airspace restrictions of nearby airports. Using time-series data from 2006 to 2019, this study comprehensively applied the autoregressive distributed lag and vector auto-regression mode approaches to identify causal relationships between the urban development factors, including GDP, population, tourism industry, industrial structure, etc., of Tianjin city (China); the Tianjin airport passenger flow; and the Beijing Capital airport's airspace restriction factor, namely, airport aircraft sorties. The results show that the growth of Tianjin city's GDP, primary industry and disposable income per capita was accompanied by a long-term decline in the passenger flow at the Tianjin airport. In addition, increased aircraft sorties of Tianjin airport, as well as the growth of primary, secondary and tertiary industries in Tianjin city, led to a short-term decline in passenger flow at the Tianjin airport. In general, there is variability in the long- and short-term impacts of urban economic structure on airport passenger flow, and this variability applies to other airports. The increased aircraft sorties at the Beijing Capital airport had a short-term positive impact on passenger flow at the Tianjin airport but resulted in a long-term decline of the latter's aircraft sorties. This phenomenon indicates that there is interaction between airports and that this influence varies depending on the competition and cooperation mechanisms between airports. The findings of this study are considered instrumental in guiding the competitive and cooperative strategies of nearby airports and predicting the coupled trends of the airport and urban development.