Introduction

An airport that is utilized by one or more airlines to focus passenger flow and flight operations is known as an airline hub or hub airport. Hubs enable travelers to arrive at their final destination by acting as transfer (or stop-over) locations. 

The hub-and-spoke system includes it. Passengers going between spoken cities link through the hub. An airline may run flights from many non-hub (spoke) cities to the hub airport.

This model generates economies of scale that enable an airline to service city-pairs that would not otherwise be economically feasible to serve nonstop (via an intermediary connection). This system is in contrast to the point-to-point approach, which offers nonstop flights between spoken cities but does not include hubs.

 The origin and destination (O&D) traffic is also handled by hub airports.

Operations

An airline can serve fewer routes with a hub-and-spoke arrangement, requiring fewer aircraft overall.Additionally, the system increases the number of passengers carried; for example, a flight from a hub to a spoke carries passengers from many spoke cities in addition to those originating at the hub. But the system is expensive. 

To accommodate passengers making connections, more staff members and facilities are required. An airline needs a variety of aircraft types, and each type requires specialized training and equipment in order to reach spoken cities with differing demographics and demand.

Airlines may also eventually dominate their hubs, or “fortress hubs,” which gives them carte blanche to raise prices as customers have nowhere else to go. 

Airport location and hub dominance are key factors in achieving high domestic connectivity in the United States. The three biggest US-based airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines, and Delta Air Lines, dominate the top 10 megahubs in the country.

Banking

At their hubs, airlines may run banks of flights, where a number of flights arrive and depart in quick succession. The non-banks could be thought of as “valleys” and the banks as “peaks” of activity at the hubs. Passengers can have shorter connection times thanks to banking. 

But an airline has to gather a lot of resources to handle the surge of flights during a bank, and having multiple planes on the ground simultaneously can cause traffic jams and delays. Furthermore, banking may lead to inefficient use of aircraft, with planes sitting in spoke cities while they wait for the next bank.

United States

With Pan Am being a significant exception, the majority of US airlines operated under the point-to-point system prior to the industry’s deregulation in 1978. The routes that an airline might operate were set by the Civil Aeronautics Board.

Types Of Hubs

Scissor Hubs and Cargo Hubs

. For the airline, the system has produced an effective distribution system.  The two major US airlines hub.

In Louisville, UPS Airlines has adhered to a similar trend. Similar to each other, ASL Airlines, Cargolux, and DHL Aviation operate their main hubs in Leipzig, Luxembourg, and Liège, respectively, throughout Europe.

Furthermore, a number of cargo carriers that operate flights between Asia and North America frequently stop over at Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska. In addition to refueling and customs, FedEx and UPS regularly use Anchorage to sort trans-Pacific shipments between regional hubs on each continent. Most cargo airlines only stop in Anchorage for refueling and customs.

Passenger airlines that function similarly to FedEx and UPS hubs are frequently referred to as scissor hubs because numerous flights to a single destination land and disembark passengers simultaneously. Following a period of passenger transit, each plane repeats the same procedure for departure to its final destination.

During the height of their activities at their previous scissor hub in Brussels before moving to Schiphol in 2016, flights were available from Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai to Toronto, New York, and Newark, with nearly simultaneous stops in Brussels and vice versa. For third and fourth freedom flights, as well as fifth freedom flights, which require a bilateral treaty between two country pairs as a prerequisite, an international scissor hub may be utilized.

During its summer schedule, WestJet used St. John’s as a scissor hub for flights to Dublin and London-Gatwick and flights incoming from Ottawa, Toronto, and Orlando. Los Angeles International Airport served as a scissor hub for Qantas aircraft departing from Melbourne in a similar manner. 

Fortress Hub

When an airline dominates the vast majority of the market at one of its US airlines hub, it is said to have a fortress hub. Competition at fortress hubs is especially tough. Examples as of 2012 were American Airlines at Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, and Philadelphia; United Airlines at Houston–Intercontinental, Newark, and Washington–Dulles; and Delta Air Lines at Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Salt Lake City.

Some flag carriers continue to enjoy a comparable level of dominance at their nation’s principal international airport as they did in the past. Aeromexico in Mexico City, Air Canada in Pearson, Air France in Paris-Charles de Gaulle, British Airways in London-Heathrow,

 Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong, Copa Airlines in Panama City, Emirates in Dubai, Ethiopian Airlines in Addis Ababa, Finnair in Helsinki, Iberia in Madrid, Japan Airlines in Tokyo-Haneda, Iran Air in Imam Khomeini, ITA Airways in Rome, Aeroflot in Sheremetyevo, Korean Air at Seoul–Incheon, KLM in Amsterdam, Lufthansa in Frankfurt, Qantas in Sydney, Singapore Airlines in Singapore, South African Airways in Johannesburg, Swiss International Air Lines in Zurich, Turkish Airlines in Istanbul, and Aegean Airlines in Athens are a few examples.

Primary and Secondary Hub

An airline’s principal hub is its main hub. Nonetheless, an airline may decide to construct secondary hubs if operations at its main hub grow to the point where capacity becomes a constraint. Air Canada’s Montréal–Trudeau and Vancouver hubs, British Airways’ London–Gatwick hub, Air India’s Mumbai hub, and Lufthansa’s Munich hub are a few examples of such hubs. Airline companies can increase their geographic reach by running multiple hubs. Additionally, they can provide additional itineraries with connections at various hubs, better serving spoke-spoke markets.

To some extent, cargo airlines such as UPS Airlines and FedEx Express also run secondary hubs; however, these are mainly utilized to service high-demand regional destinations, as shipping packages through their main hub would result in fuel waste. As an illustration, consider FedEx’s practice of transiting packages through Oakland International Airport instead of the Memphis Superhub when shipping packages between destinations near Seattle and Phoenix, Arizona.

Reliever Hub

Airlines may be forced to reroute traffic to a reliever hub if a particular hub’s capacity runs out or if there are capacity problems during daytime peak hours. An airline can plan additional O&D city pairs for connecting traffic, avoid the crowded hub, and absorb surplus demand for flights that normally could not be scheduled at the congested hub by using a relieving hub.

While the majority of international and long-haul domestic flights continue to operate out of JFK, many regional flights are based at LaGuardia.

Lufthansa uses a comparable business strategy, with its hubs located at Munich and Frankfurt airports. Generally speaking, the airline bases a somewhat larger but smaller minority of its long-haul flights out of Munich, while a marginal majority of its flights are generally operated out of Frankfurt.

Moonlight Hub

Carriers have historically continued to operate specialized, time-of-day activities at hubs. The most noteworthy was how America West increased aircraft utilization rates much above those of rival carriers by using McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, which is now named after veteran Nevada Senator Harry Reid, as its principal night-flight hub.