College Puts Out List of the World´s Most Important Airports

Paris ranks as the world´s most important air connection point, according to last week´s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the study by Northwestern University researchers examined 3,883 communities with airports around the world and in doing so found key places to pay attention to during an outbreak of contagious diseases.

Researchers based their ranking on a criterion called "centrality," which rates the shortest paths connecting any two cities that involve a transfer at a particular city.

Alaska´s Anchorage finished second, followed by London, Singapore and New York. While London and Singapore have far more direct flights with other cities, Anchorage placed higher because the Alaskan capital serves as a channel between international routes and local airports, the study revealed.

The study found that a traveler can get from any of the cities to any other with an average of 4.4 flights, and more than half the communities are connected with four flights or fewer.

Paris leads the list of top cities in the world for nonstop flights, with flights to 250 other cities, followed by London, 242; Frankfurt, 237; Amsterdam, 192 and Moscow, 186.

Funded the National Institutes of Health, the study analyzed 531,574 flights operated by 800 airlines worldwide from Nov. 1 to 7, 2000.

Researchers contend that four-year-old data is current as the current worldwide airport network remains "virtually identical" during the last four years.