Airline hub

An airline hub is an airport that an airline uses as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination. It is part of a hub and spoke model, where travelers moving between airports not served by direct flights change planes en route to their destinations. Many hubs of the airlines are also situated at airports in the cities of the respective head offices.

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.

Many airlines also utilize focus cities, which function much the same as hubs. Airlines may also use secondary hubs, a non-technical term for large focus cities.

For most non-US airlines, it is more technically correct to use the term home base rather than hub as a majority of their flights are international^{[citation needed]} and the so-called hubs are simply their home countries' largest airports, such as Dubai International Airport for Emirates Airline or Dublin Airport for Aer Lingus. Indeed, the application of the term hub in such contexts is only recently popularized by American airline industry analysts and often contested by local commentators.^{[citation needed]}

A point of onward transfer is required to be called something, and a hub is as good a name as any other in the genre. An airline must have a base, and while a hub is very much a travel industry and aviation term, it describes the purpose of an airlines main base airport, and similarly secondary hubs, and focus cities.

Fortress hub

Template:Globalize/US A fortress hub is an airport where a single airline's share of flights is at or above the monopoly standard of 70 percent of flights in and out of the hub.^[1] For example, in 2005 US Airways occupied 72 (plus 1 shared with Lufthansa) out of 85 total gates and accounted for approximately 90% of passenger traffic at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport.^[2]^[3] New entrants, such as Spirit Airlines at Detroit (DTW), AirTran at Atlanta (ATL), and Vanguard at Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), allege to have been the target of exclusionary practices by the dominant carrier. Some observers argue that the existence of such hubs can stifle competition; ProAir's battle with Northwest when it briefly flew out of Detroit City Airport is often cited as an example. Northwest was able to out compete the short-lived discount carrier by matching its fares and offering more frequent flights. Although these competitive measures have nothing to do with hub status per se, they are indicative of the measures a hub airline will take to defend its preferred position at a hub airport.

A few examples of fortress hubs for major US airlines include but not limited to:

Major passenger airlines and their hubs

References

^ Dr. Mark N. Cooper (1999-01-22). "Freeing Public Pollicy from the Deregulation Debate: The Airline Industry Comes of Age" (.PDF). Consumer Federation of America: 10–11. Retrieved 2007-03-17. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Source: City of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, May 2005; US Airways, June 2005 A fortress hub is difficult for new entrant carriers to penetrate.
^ "Appendix A: Statement of Enforcement Policy Regarding Unfair Exclusionary Conduct" (PDF). pp. 10–11. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
^ Hub Cities: Air Canada.com [1]

External links

[1] Dr. Mark N. Cooper (1999-01-22). "Freeing Public Pollicy from the Deregulation Debate: The Airline Industry Comes of Age" (.PDF). Consumer Federation of America: 10–11. Retrieved 2007-03-17. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[2] Source: City of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, May 2005; US Airways, June 2005 A fortress hub is difficult for new entrant carriers to penetrate.

[3] "Appendix A: Statement of Enforcement Policy Regarding Unfair Exclusionary Conduct" (PDF). pp. 10–11. Retrieved 2007-03-28.

[4] Hub Cities: Air Canada.com [1]

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Fortress hub

Major passenger airlines and their hubs

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See also

References

External links