Quantifying Deviations from Gaussianity with Application to Flight Delay Distributions

We propose a novel approach for quantifying deviations from Gaussianity by leveraging the Jensen-Shannon distance. Using stable distributions as a flexible framework, we analyze the effects of skewness and heavy tails in synthetic sequences. We employ phase-randomized surrogates as Gaussian referenc...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Olivares, Felipe, Zanin, Massimiliano
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/401584
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/401584
http://arxiv.org/abs/2503.05834v1
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Jensen–Shannon divergence
Air traffic management
Flight delays
Non-Gaussian distributions
Ordinal patterns
Stable distributions
Descripción
Sumario:We propose a novel approach for quantifying deviations from Gaussianity by leveraging the Jensen-Shannon distance. Using stable distributions as a flexible framework, we analyze the effects of skewness and heavy tails in synthetic sequences. We employ phase-randomized surrogates as Gaussian references to systematically evaluate the statistical distance between this reference and stable distributions. Our methodology is validated using real flight delay datasets from major airports in Europe and the United States, revealing significant deviations from Gaussianity, particularly at high-traffic airports. These results highlight systematic air traffic management strategy differences between the two geographic regions.