Whenever you go on a transcontinental, trans-pacifc, trans-atlantic, or just any long-haul flight
You might notice that you have a stop or better known as a stopover in a certain airport. Why?
Whenever you fly somewhere faraway from where you live,
There is a chance you have a stopover at an airport somewhere in the middle between
your airport of origin and destination.
For example, when you try booking a flight from San Francisco to Rome,
there are no non-stop flights.
Some people will say because it's too far for an airplane to fly
but that isn't entirely true.
You see,
when airlines route flights,
they usually use one of the two most popular methods of flight routing,
the hub-and-spoke model and the point-to-point model.
The hub-and-spoke model is the one we'll focus on for the good majority of this video.
The hub-and-spoke model is the number one reason why stopovers generally exist.
It's not necessarily because of the length of route.
There are so many non-stop flight routes in the world that are longer than what you can imagine.
Some examples of flights I found are Dallas-Fort Worth to Sydney,
Toronto to New Delhi
Atlanta to Johannesburg
L.A. to Dubai. I can go on, but I won't
Whenever you look at a Wikipedia page of an airline, you might notice that an airline has "hubs".
This is exactly the same term they use in the term "hub-and-spoke". So, what are airport hubs?
There can be multiple different definitions to this, but the main definition is this.
An airline hub is an airport that an airline uses to help connect passengers from one region to another,
and so prioritize their flights to and from these airports
We'll use Delta Airlines as an example.
On the US east coast, Delta uses John F. Kennedy International Airport and Boston-Logan International Airport
as their gateway between North America and Europe.
On the US West Coast, Delta Airlines has a hub in Los Angeles to connect flights to Asia/Pacific and recently
in 2014,
set Seattle-Tacoma Airport as a hub to both connect more flights to Asia,
as air traffic in Los Angeles is high,
but also to compete with the rivaling Seattle-based airline Alaska Airlines.
Delta operates a hub in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport, the world's busiest airport, not John F. Kennedy or Tokyo,
one because Atlanta is where Delta's headquarters are,
and second because it's a both a secondary Trans-Atlantic gateway but also to connect flights to Central America and the Caribbean.
Delta also has a hub in Tokyo-Narita airport to better connect to people in Asia,
however recently it is said that Delta may possibly drop their Tokyo hub
which makes sense considering the fact that Delta only has six actual destinations in Asia/Pacific islands
Those being
SIngapore
Shanghai,
Manila,
Guam,
Palau
and Saipan.
That leaves us to these nine airports-
Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris Charles De Gaulle, Cincinnati
Detroit, London Heathrow, New York LaGuardia,
Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City.
It doesn't make too much sense as to why Delta has these
nine airports as hubs
so I'll explain.
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is because of Delta's long SkyTeam alliance membership,
and since SkyTeam's headquarters are in Amsterdam,
Delta has a hub in Amsterdam.
London Heathrow and Paris Charles De Gaulle airport
are both because of two of Delta's partners-
Virgin Atlantic and Air France,
have their main hubs at these two airports
thus, Delta has a conjunction with these two airlines.
Meaning, if there is a problem that prevents, let's say,
Air France,
to operate a flight either out or to Paris, their main hub,
then Delta can come in and serve that flight so that passengers won't get to
their destinations late.
In Detroit, Delta uses Detroit Metropolitan Airport
as the gateway between the Northeastern United States to Asia.
Minneapolis is a hub for Delta so that they can connect to regional or more rural airports across the Northern Mid-West
with Delta Connection,
one of Delta's subsidary airlines.
Salt Lake City does the same with the Central Western half of the United States.
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport used to be Delta's second largest hub until they merged with Northwest Airlines
and Detroit took over as the gateway between Asia and the Northeastern United States
thus, passenger traffic has drastically lowered in the past few years.
New York City LaGuardia may seem a bit confusing,
considering that Delta already has a hub at the larger John F. Kennedy airport.
The reason why Delta has a hub in LaGuardia is for passengers who are only travelling on domestic or short-haul flights,
while JFK is for flights to Europe.
The point is, an airline hub is an airport dedicated to connecting passengers from one certain region to another.
This can explain why Alaska Airlines,
even though it is dedicated to flying people from or to Alaska and even has the name Alaska in its name,
, is headquartered in Seattle and its main hub is in Seattle-Tacoma airport.
That's because Seattle is right in the northwest corner of the United States.
Because of this,
Alaska can connect more people across the United States East Coast to Alaska and vice versa.
This way, Alaska can keep their 737-only fleet since
if they flew non-stop flights between the East Coast and Alaska,
they'd need to buy planes that can fly longer which thus would cost more money.
So, Alaska Airlines thrives with the hub-and-spoke model.
Now, a question some may have is why are hubs usually at cities that have a high population?
For example, why do United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Airlines
all have cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Seattle as their hub
and not places like Portland or Oakland?
It's a good question, with a good answer.
The simple answer is that these cities are high-demand cities,
meaning more people visit these cities than others.
It's a depressing truth for those who live in low-demand cities, such as Portland, Oakland, or others,
but the truth is is that airlines will make more profits by setting Los Angeles,
a city that served almost 81 million people in 2016 as their hub,
rather than a small city like Portland which served less than 230,000 people in 2016.
HA, TAKE THAT PORTLAND
If you remember at the beginning of this video, I mentioned another model of flight routing,
the point-to-point model.
Point-to-point routes are the sort of opposite of the hub-and-spoke model.
The difference is, in the point-to-point model airlines can fly routes between two cities without having to connect via another city.
With this, travel time is faster since passengers don't need to wait at a second airport to catch their next flight leaving for their final destination.
For example, in the hub-and-spoke model people in let's say San Francisco who want to go to,
let's say...
The Philippines, they'd would have to connect through cities like Tokyo or Seoul or Beijing to connect onto a flight leaving for Manila.
This is ineffecient.
In the point to point model, airlines just simply fly a route between San Francisco and Manila thus making travel time faster.
And now, I believe the plane has finally landed. I want to thank you, the viewer,
for watching this as this is the first time I've made these type of videos. It isn't the most perfect video,
I know,
but I'd say I'm proud of my video.
Anyways, thanks for watching, and as they say in Korea,
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