  Due to its rapid development in the past decade, air transportation system
has attracted considerable research attention from diverse communities. While
most of the previous studies focused on airline networks, here we
systematically explore the robustness of the Chinese air route network, and
identify the vital edges which form the backbone of Chinese air transportation
system. Specifically, we employ a memetic algorithm to minimize the network
robustness after removing certain edges hence the solution of this model is the
set of vital edges. Counterintuitively, our results show that the most vital
edges are not necessarily the edges of highest topological importance, for
which we provide an extensive explanation from the microscope of view. Our
findings also offer new insights to understanding and optimizing other
real-world network systems.
