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Airline hub

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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, but with fewer flights. 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 and the so-called hubs are simply their home countries' largest airports, such as Auckland International Airport for Air New Zealand, Narita International Airport for Japan Airlines, or Singapore Changi Airport for Singapore Airlines. 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.

All 30 of the busiest airports in the world serve as hubs for one or more major airlines.[citation needed]

Fortress hub

A fortress hub is a hub dominated by a single airline that controls a share of flights 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 DTW, AirTran at ATL, and Vanguard at 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.

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

Major passenger airlines and their hubs

Africa

Asia

Europe

North America (including Hawaii)

Caribbean

Oceania

South America

See also

References

  1. ^ Dr. Mark N. Cooper (22 January 1999). "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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