The distances of the Pacific made the aerial campaigns fought there during World War II quite different from continental campaigns. The amount of land and the availability of a field or SOME place to land differs quite substantially from the Pacific where an island may be the only place with a suitable landing field for a few hundred miles around. Where in Europe, Africa, and Asia there were usually emergency fields an aircraft could divert to - or in the worst case, an open field to land on, the Pacific was not the best place to land an aircraft you wanted to use again.
Where is might have been possible in Europe to shift a few squadrons temporarily to an air base in another sector, this was not always possible in the Pacific where the range may be too great.
For example, the first US Marine F4F squadrons that flew into Guadalcanal had to wait for a carrier to ferry them close enough to where if they could not land at the base, they could fly else (rather than being wasted by ditching). Part of the problem was equipment related - the navy had drop tanks that could have given the F4Fs the required range - but needed them for carrier ops and did not have many spares.
Coordinating forces across the wide pacific was not always easy either. For starters, radio traffic loud enough to be heard across the great distances of ocean could also be heard by the other side, so both sides used codes - and codes within codes. While this threw off the other side, it also clouded any coordination efforts.
Both sides had their problems. While MacArthur did a good job of coordinating the Amercian and Australian forces in his South West Pacific region, he did less well coordinating with neighboring commands. The level of cooperation with the neighboring South Pacific command in the Solomons was poor.
The Japanese had their share of issues along these lines, too. Army/Navy cooperation was poor at best most of the time. Various
Worse, getting the aircraft to a remote air field was only half the battle. To keep flying in combat, aircraft need fuel and replacement parts, which could be difficult to ship over the long distances of the Pacific. Even one's "friendly, safe areas" could be prowled by enemy submarines or patrolled by enemy aircraft.
In Guadalcanal, at certain times the Marine Air Wing was limited to the fuel that came in on C-47 transport aircraft - which wasn't all that much. The Japanese had similar issues in New Guinea, Rabaul (and everywhere closer to the end of the war).
Supply was also an issue in China due to the lack of a direct land supply route. Chennault's Chinese-American Task Force and later 14th Air Force would need to go quiescent to gather enough supplies for a major attack.
The Japanese, being an island nation, fitted the extreme need for range into their design paradigm. They already emphasized light, maneuverable fighter aircraft typified by the A6M Zero as a combat preference. They also designed lightly built bombers. This also better suited their industry with its limited access to strategic materials.
Where the Americans sought long range by building bigger and bigger (and heavier) bombers, the Japanese squeezed out weight to gain range, producing surprising results among their naval aircraft (whose deployment either form land or form carriers would involve lots of time over water). Beginning in 1936, the G3M Nell, G4M Betty, the D3A Val, B5N Kate, and the A6M Zero all displayed wondrous range - far longer than their American -built counterparts.
Early in the war (before 1944), this placed major limits on the US ability to hit the supporting Japanese bases. Their aircraft could generally reach as far as the base in contention - but not further. Being able to attack enemy carriers required luring them into range, which gave the Japanese an advantage since their range was larger.
Later in the war, US naval aircraft gained longer legs, and the US naval build up bore enough fruit that the massed aircraft carrier task forces were not at as much risk against the dwindling effectiveness of Japanese aircraft.