2006-10-24 07:04:31 · 33 answers · asked by Heron By The Sea 7 in Travel ➔ Air Travel
It's a way of organizing an airline system to get the most amount of people from place to place, and keeping costs low without making it too inconvenient to passengers. A "hub" is the center of a wagon wheel, with the "spokes" coming out from the hub to the edge of the wheel.
You may ask, "If an airline has an airport in San Diego, and one in Detroit, how come there isn't a flight straight from San Diego to Detroit?" This is because few people fly straight from San Diego to Detroit. However, more people fly from San Diego to Chicago, so you fly from San Diego to Chicago, and then another plane to Detroit (or Minneapolis, or Pittsburgh, or smaller cities in that region). That Chicago to Detroit line will be shared with people from all over the nation going to Detroit, rather than just one city.
The "hub" (Chicago) sends travelers to a number of "spokes" (the smaller cities). The airline doesn't have to fly a near-empty plane from one part of the nation to another. They fly lots of people to the hub, and then smaller planes to take more people to the "spokes". The traveler benefits - they have more ways, more times to get to Detroit, rather than just one rare flight.
2006-10-24 14:16:17 · answer #1 · answered by Polymath 5 · 6⤊ 2⤋
The answers that relate to multiple cities are correct.
The hubs are (usually) large airports that have significantly larger numbers of flights in and out. Usually they are international airports. Each airline had its own hubs, some of which are common to two or more airlines. Newark, NJ, Chicago, IL and St Louis, MO are examples of Hubs. Louisville, KY, Allentown, PA and Buffalo are spokes. It is possible, and somewhat common, for an airport to be a Hub for one airline and a spoke for another.
The point is that I can more effectively manage traffic and my fleet if I use some central locations to funnel traffic through. Plus when sending people to some of my spokes, I can use smaller, less costly aircraft, sometimes referred to as commuter jets.
Incidentally just about every airline and package delivery company, as well as railroads and bus companies claim to have invented this system, by one name or another. A similar system was used in the old west with the pony express.
2006-10-25 03:43:33 · answer #2 · answered by math_prof 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The hud and spoke system is something major airlines use in order to create an efficiency in their services. There's a main hub...where the aircraft can stop to refuel....and the spokes are airports surrounding the hub. For example...some of the major airlines have detroit or chicago as hubs cause its centrally located and therefore refuelling can be done easily.
2006-10-25 10:44:22 · answer #3 · answered by sima p 1 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Hub-and-spoke system -means a system of air transportation in which local airports offer air transportation to a central airport where long-distance flights are available
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 destination.
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. Examples include British Airways at Manchester International Airport and US Airways at Pittsburgh International Airport.
Some of the major airlines' most significant hubs are known as fortress hubs; such airports are typically dominated by a single airline, which can fly upwards of 70 percent of a fortress hub airport's traffic. Examples include Northwest Airlines' (NW) hub in Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Delta Air Lines' (DL) hub in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and American Airlines' (AA) hub in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. 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 outcompete the short-lived discount carrier by matching its fares and offering more frequent flights.
2006-10-24 23:34:14 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
A hub is a center distribution point for an airline. These are major cities that passengers picked up at a small city fly to and make their connecting flight to their destination. Some major hub cities are Houston, Dallas, LA, Chicago and New York. See the article below for a better explanation and happy flying.
2006-10-25 09:49:41 · answer #5 · answered by david42 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The hub is the airport that an airline routes most of it's flights through in a given region. .
Northwest, for example. . routes many of it's flights through Minneapolis and many through Detroit, so they are NWA's "hubs"
The spokes are smaller regional airports. . like if Minneapolis is a hub, then you'd fly through there to get to Great Falls, Montana, which would have a much smaller airport, and the line from Minneapolis to GF Montana would be a "spoke". . sticking out from the hub to the smaller airport (at the other end of the spoke).
2006-10-24 11:13:19 · answer #6 · answered by Wayne A 5 · 3⤊ 1⤋
Being or relating to a system of routing air traffic in which a major airport serves as a central point for coordinating flights to and from other airports.
A good example of a hub-and-spoke system is that of Delta Airlines, which has its hub at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport. Let's say you are in Charleston, SC, and want to go to Memphis, TN. There's probably not a lot of demand for a Charleston-to-Memphis flight, so the airline flies you from Charleston to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta to Memphis via a connecting flight.
2006-10-24 15:31:59 · answer #7 · answered by Pey 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The hub is the major airport that the larger airlines fly out of.
The spokes are the smaller feeder airports that typically commuter lines work
2006-10-25 09:42:11 · answer #8 · answered by lowflyer1 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
A hub is the large airport that most flights will fly in an out of, or where most flights originate and end. A spoke is the secondary point - the most popupar airport flown to from the hub.
2006-10-24 07:11:23 · answer #9 · answered by pknutson_sws 5 · 6⤊ 2⤋
Noun 1. hub-and-spoke system - a system of air transportation in which local airports offer air transportation to a central airport where long-distance flights are available
hub-and-spoke
air transportation system - a transportation system for moving passengers or goods by air
Hub and Spoke Airport Networks and State Airport Infrastructure Spillovers: A Spatial Econometrics Approach
Jeffrey P. Cohen, University of Hartford
Catherine J. Morrison Paul, University of California, Davis
Download the Paper (1.3 MB, PDF file) - December 1, 2001 Tell a colleague about it.
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ABSTRACT:
In recent years, many hubs in the highly interdependent U.S. air transport network have become congested, leading to delays for business travelers and freight shipments. Recent events in this industry may have temporarily reduced this congestion, but contributed to other types of disruptions. Since delays and disruptions at one node of the network exacerbate problems throughout the system, airport infrastructure expansion to enhance traffic flows and security in large hubs may confer substantive spillover benefits in the form of travel-time savings and reliability. This may in turn translate into increased worker productivity and shipping efficiency, and thus lower costs, for manufacturing firms. In this paper we evaluate the impacts of such spillovers, by applying spatial econometrics techniques to a cost function framework, using state-level data on airport and highway infrastructure, and manufacturing production. We find that increasing own-state airport infrastructure tends to generate cost-saving benefits for the state's manufacturing industry, primarily due to non-production labor- and materials-savings. However, airport expansion in connected hubs has an even greater impact, implying an important externality component of such investment. Also, unless airport expansion is accompanied by highway infrastructure investment, congestion seems to counteract the associated benefits, especially in large-hub states with less than 5 percent of the nation's passenger enplanements.
SUGGESTED CITATION:
Jeffrey P. Cohen and Catherine J. Morrison Paul, "Hub and Spoke Airport Networks and State Airport Infrastructure Spillovers: A Spatial Econometrics Approach" (December 1, 2001). Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UCD. ARE Working Papers. Paper 01-011.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/are/arewp/01-011
2006-10-26 04:58:05 · answer #10 · answered by Majenta 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋