IGU 2024: Geographies of air transport

Air transportation has experienced major upheavals over the past ten years principally due to the COVID pandemic and its fallout. Steadily growing air passenger totals through 2019 suddenly dropped in 2020 due to the pandemic but air cargo demand increased due to the need for medical and other supplies to be delivered to areas experiencing high rates of COVID transmission. As the pandemic eventually began to subside in 2022 and 2023, passenger air transportation recovered to the point that 2023 is approaching levels of activity similar to the pre-COVID period.

Air transportation in each region and each country of the world was affected by the pandemic in different ways, due to many factors including the timing, severity and geographical extent of transmission. Likewise, the recovery in air transport has been geographically uneven due to numerous factors including economic and political conditions.

This session invites papers to examine how air transport in different regions of the world has changed over the previous ten years. Topics can be based in any or several of the following or related areas: • Comparative historical geographies of air transport • Geopolitics and the regulatory environment for air transport • Economic geography and urban development • Air cargo and freight • Socio-cultural mobilities and social equity • Environmental impacts and sustainability • Airports • Intermodal interface with long-distance and/or local transport systems Papers can be focused on air transport developments in major world regions including Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Latin America and Africa, as well as specific countries within these regions.