A last major transformation in the mobility of the Chinese
population over the past few decades has been related to the
development of airports, airlines and air flights. The last two
papers of this Special Issue address key issues associated with
the changing internal structure of the country’s aviation system
and its overall network, making comparisons with other countries
and time-series comparisons in China possible. In particular, Ryerson
and Ge (this issue) explore the potential of short-haul and
regional air flights in China. Looking at the evolution process, Wang
et al. (this issue) conceptualize the changes in China’s air transport
network into six stages towards emerging multi-airport systems.