Airline hub
Airline hubs are airports that an airline uses as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination. It is part of a hub and spoke model, as opposed to the Point to Point model, where travelers moving between airports not served by direct flights change planes en route to their destinations.[1]
Many airlines also use focus cities, which have a good catchment area and function much the same as hubs, but on a smaller scale and may also function as feeders to main hubs. Some airlines also use the term secondary hubs for large focus cities.[2] Some airlines may use only a single hub, while other airlines use multiple hubs. Hubs are used for both passenger flights as well as cargo flights.[citation needed]
A hub in the middle of a route is more effective than at either end as connecting traffic more easily fills the plane – passengers prefer a one-stop (two-leg) route over a two-stop (three-leg) route.[3] The FAA uses the term airline hub based on number of commercial passengers in the FAA airport categories, re-evaluated every year. Airlines often have their headquarters in a major hub, whether on the same campus as the hub airport (for example, Delta Air Lines has its headquarters at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a Delta hub), or otherwise in the city served by the hub (for example, United Airlines has its headquarters in Chicago, which is served by O'Hare International Airport, a United hub).
Competition
A dominant airline will want to take measures to defend its preferred position at a hub airport.[4] These measures can sometimes be anti-competitive, for example Pro Air's battle with Northwest when it briefly flew out of Detroit City Airport: Northwest was able to out compete the short-lived discount carrier by matching its fares and offering more frequent flights.[5]
New entrants, such as Spirit Airlines at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, or AirTran at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, allege to have been the target of exclusionary practices by the dominant carrier, like in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport or all Delta Air Lines hubs[citation needed].
Airports where a single airline's share of flights is at or above 70 percent can be called fortress hub.[6] For example, in 2010 US Airways occupied 85 (plus 1 shared with Lufthansa) out of 97 total gates and accounted for approximately 90% of passenger traffic at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The existence of fortress hubs makes possible the use of "hidden city" ticketing.
Most connected Airports
OAG calculates a ‘Connectivity Index’ for each airport as a ratio of the number of possible connections to the number of destinations served by each airport.
| Rank | Airport | Country | Connectivity Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ATL | USA | 2503 |
| 2 | ORD | USA | 2280 |
| 3 | DFW | USA | 1940 |
| 4 | CLT | USA | 1585 |
| 5 | IAH | USA | 1028 |
| 6 | DTW | USA | 903 |
| 7 | CGH | Brazil | 880 |
| 8 | DEN | USA | 877 |
| 9 | MEX | Mexico | 826 |
| 10 | PHX | USA | 778 |
See also
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References
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