The development of this paper aims to analyze the potential of the Chinese aviation market that is booming in the development of the Lisbon International Airport through empirical analysis based on panel data models applied to the transport context, in particular in the air transport sector. In addition to the previously stated objective was analyzed the concept of circuit level and, for the first time, applied to the national context in order to verify its beneficial nature for the development and appropriate use of geographical conditions of the main Portuguese aviation infrastructure. Two gravity models with panel data were used. These econometric models allow the study of attractiveness between origin and destination in air transport. In this paper there is a brief reflection and introducing of a new concept that is still little explored in the world literature and particularly in the aviation sector, the circuit level. The applicability of this concept in this research work allowed the assessment of the geographical quality of a set of airport infrastructure serving hub on certain routes, concluding that the lower this parameter the best is the quality of service at this hub, and as such possible to say that no other route diversion let them to carry passengers in a shorter period of time.
Lisbon; gravity model; panel data modeling; circuit level; air transport