Flight Connectivity Index – as at 31 December 2011
Each six months I look at how well connected by air countries are to each other – the Flight Connectivity Index (FCI). Previous updates - FCI 30 June 2009, FCI 31 December 2009, FCI 30 June 2010, FCI 31 December 2010 and FCI 31 June 2011.
Flight Connectivity Index (FCI)
The Flight Connectivity Index (FCI) value is the number of other countries to which you can fly directly from a given country, based on published schedules of IATA airlines. Domestic flights do not count. To simplify the calculation, countries are defined as members of United Nations, as opposed to using one of the many other country lists available.
With South Sudan joining the United Nations in the past six months there are now 193 member countries of the UN, and the maximum FCI score is 192. Germany is the country with highest FCI at the moment, at 111 (+1 from a year ago and the highest index I’ve yet recorded). Four countries have no flights and FCI score of 0 – these are Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino. The average FCI is 23.19, unchanged from December 2010.
Since the last update there has been the usual seasonal changes. In the first half of 2011 most of the spring revolution countries (North Africa plus Syria) lost some connectivity. In the second half of 2011 most of these countries saw normal air service resume. Libya is the notable exception and in the past 12 months has seen the flight connectivity index reduce from 39 to just 10 – by far the biggest annual change in connectivity I’ve recorded to date (the next biggest annual change was Togo increasing their score by 10 in 2010). Indeed, if we ignore the 2011 change in Libya’s connectivity the average FCI would be 0.30 higher.
More results after the jump.
