Forecasting one-year-ahead route discontinuation: an equity-aware targeting framework for air-connectivity programmes [Data and code availability]

This repository reproduces every table and figure in the manuscript. The study forecasts U.S. domestic air-route discontinuation one year ahead from free public data and translates the resulting risk scores into a budget-constrained, equity-aware targeting rule for connectivity programmes such as the U.S. Essential Air Service (EAS) and the European Public Service Obligation (PSO). The analysis panel is a route-by-quarter dataset covering 2014Q1–2025Q3 (437,784 route-quarters, 33,699 routes), assembled entirely from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics and then filtered to airports averaging at least 5,000 seats per active quarter (≈ FAA NPIAS commercial-service tier; 530 airports retained). Against a test-set base rate of 0.104, gradient-boosted trees reach ROC-AUC 0.919–0.923 and PR-AUC 0.586–0.595; at a 10% targeting budget the policy rule captures 54% of discontinuations while concentrating on peripheral connectivity (41% of flagged routes touch a peripheral airport versus 12.7% overall).