Liberalisation and the regional air network configuration from Nigeria to other West African Countries

Abstract

This paper examines the liberalisation and the regional air network configuration from Nigeria to other West African regions. It aims to study the impacts of liberalisation on the regional spatial structure of air networks from Nigeria to West Africa in the pre and post-liberalisation. The pre-liberalisation covers between 1988–2000, and the post-liberalisation ranges from 2001 to 2018. The methodology involves using the graph theory to calculate the route and the network topology in the pre and post-liberalisation and compare the resulting index. This hypothesis was tested using the alpha index. The alpha index analysis compares the level of connection in a pre-and post-liberalisation network via graphical depictions of each period’s route and network structure and the resulting alpha index. The pre-liberalisation alpha index for the route and network was 0.297, while the post-liberalisation alpha index was 0.334. The alpha index ranged from 0 to 1 and was the perfect network for the post‐liberalisation period. In post-liberalisation, the alpha index of the route and network are higher than in pre-liberalisation. Hence, the connection is better in post-liberalisation.