An airline hub or hub airport is an airport used by one or more airlines to concentrate passenger traffic and flight operations. Hubs serve as transfer (or stop-over) points to help get passengers to their final destination.[a][b] It is part of the hub-and-spoke system. An airline may operate flights from several non-hub (spoke) cities to the hub airport, and passengers traveling between spoke cities connect through the hub. This paradigm creates economies of scale that allow an airline to serve (via an intermediate connection) city-pairs that could otherwise not be economically served on a non-stop basis. This system contrasts with the point-to-point model, in which there are no hubs and nonstop flights are instead offered between spoke cities. Hub airports also serve origin and destination (O&D) traffic.
- ^ a b Holloway, Stephen (2008). Straight and Level: Practical Airline Economics (3rd ed.). Ashgate Publishing. pp. 376, 378. ISBN 9780754672562. Archived from the original on 8 May 2018.
- ^ "Airport Categories". Federal Aviation Administration. 3 March 2016. Archived from the original on 28 May 2016. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
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