I was messing around with Gcmap recently, and plugged in all the hub-hub routes of the US3 and it did an excellent job in helping to visualize their networks regarding dominance and weaknesses in the domestic market. Have a look:

United has a very strong northern skew, with IAH as the sole southern hub.



American has a strong Eastern skew, with PHX as the sole western hub.



I found it interesting that if you consider LAX a Delta hub, then they are the only airline to have every region of the country covered: Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Central, Northwest, and Southwest.

While that is interesting, and it's good you did this, AA considers LAX a hub and is in fact the largest airlines there at the moment. Both DL and AA also use JFK/LGA as a hub so you've missed some routes there. AA's network would be more complete with those routes and it would be easy to see that their weakness is in the northwest.

Isn't LAX considered an AA hub?

FoxtrotSierra wrote:

I was messing around with Gcmap recently, and plugged in all the hub-hub routes of the US3 and it did an excellent job in helping to visualize their networks regarding dominance and weaknesses in the domestic market. Have a look:

United has a very strong northern skew, with IAH as the sole southern hub.



American has a strong Eastern skew, with PHX as the sole western hub.



I found it interesting that if you consider LAX a Delta hub, then they are the only airline to have every region of the country covered: Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Central, Northwest, and Southwest.

UA also considers LAX a hub as well.

77H

hispanola wrote:

While that is interesting, and it's good you did this, AA considers LAX a hub and is in fact the largest airlines there at the moment. Both DL and AA also use JFK/LGA as a hub so you've missed some routes there. AA's network would be more complete with those routes and it would be easy to see that their weakness is in the northwest.

AA's problem is that LAX doesn't add anything that isn't already served from PHX, AA never had a hole in the Southwest to begin with, and as you rightly point out, they need a NW hub to have the entire country covered. SFO and SEA both have fierce duopolies like ORD's of the Pacific, but AA should consider making PDX a NW hub, then it would look more like this:

FoxtrotSierra wrote:

hispanola wrote:

While that is interesting, and it's good you did this, AA considers LAX a hub and is in fact the largest airlines there at the moment. Both DL and AA also use JFK/LGA as a hub so you've missed some routes there. AA's network would be more complete with those routes and it would be easy to see that their weakness is in the northwest.

AA's problem is that LAX doesn't add anything that isn't already served from PHX, AA never had a hole in the Southwest to begin with, and as you rightly point out, they need a NW hub to have the entire country covered. SFO and SEA both have fierce duopolies like ORD's of the Pacific, but AA should consider making PDX a NW hub, then it would look more like this:

no offense intended, but all you did is draw hub-to-hub routes. i think you'd see a great deal of the NW USA covered by AA with routes from DFW, LAX, and to a lesser degree, PHX. Your theory that they "need" a hub in the NW area only works if you can prove there must be a hub in every region to have the airline work properly. Before the merger with US, AA functioned with no Southeaster CLT hub and was very successful. I like the maps but it would be more accurate to plot the actual flights, not just the hub-to-hub flights.

FoxtrotSierra wrote:

hispanola wrote:

While that is interesting, and it's good you did this, AA considers LAX a hub and is in fact the largest airlines there at the moment. Both DL and AA also use JFK/LGA as a hub so you've missed some routes there. AA's network would be more complete with those routes and it would be easy to see that their weakness is in the northwest.

AA's problem is that LAX doesn't add anything that isn't already served from PHX, AA never had a hole in the Southwest to begin with, and as you rightly point out, they need a NW hub to have the entire country covered. SFO and SEA both have fierce duopolies like ORD's of the Pacific, but AA should consider making PDX a NW hub, then it would look more like this:

If they added PDX why would you assume they would eliminate LAX. LAX is one of the largest O & D markets in the US. Its currently used by AA, DL, WN & UA as well as AA/VX. And it' still growing. You would have to be crazy to ceed that market for PDX. Why do you think UA keeps it with SFO so close.

UA Hubs in US: ORD, DEN, IAH, LAX, EWR, SFO, IAD

AA Hubs in US: CLT, ORD, DFW, LAX, MIA, JFK, LGA, PHL, PHX, DCA

DL Hubs in US: ATL, BOS, CVG, DTW, LAX, SLC, SEA.

The fact that you skewed this towards Delta even while not using all Deltas hubs. Blatantly leaving out important hubs for the other airlines. Tells me your a Delta Fan boy and seem to be doing an commercial for Delta more than a true spec for the airlines. Based on many articles from experts in the field UA should be the number one airline based on shaving the best hub system. However they are too good at shooting themselves in the foot & loosing customers. I was a fan of Delta for years as well as Aloha. One succeeded & one failed during a time Mesa cheated to form their Hawaii venture.

Point is if your going to use the hubs to make a point include them all for all the carriers, don't pick and choose the best to try and win your point. Is does not work.

this whole thread makes no sense. It doesn't account for focus cities or p2p flights. It's pretty impossible to garner any information from this. A better metric would be to identify certain O/D and see how far you have to deviate off the direct routing to make the connection on said airline.

rbavfan wrote:

DL Hubs in US: ATL, BOS, CVG, DTW, LAX, SLC, SEA.

*cough* MSP / LGA / JFK *cough*

The top post is missing several hubs, but the US3 certainly do have certain routes and regions where they have been dominant even back during the regulation era:

AA: Transcons NYC-LA via ORD or DFW (legacy AA), NYC transatlantic (legacy TWA), northeastern shorthauls (legacy AL/US) and southeastern shorthauls (legacy Piedmont). Then post-deregulation they eventually took over most of Braniff's old network (both DFW routes and the MIA-Latin America network) and of course the HP PHX hub.

DL: ATL has always been key, especially to Florida, Chicago, the Northeast, and the southwest (legacy DL plus remnants of EA's ATL hub, and some of this came from regulation-era mergers with C&S and NE). Also there is the northern tier transcon (NY-Detroit-Chicago-Minneapolis-PNW inherited from NW), short-haul Midwest (mostly from North Central), SLC & LAX (from Western), Asia (from NW), and NYC Transatlantic (inherited from Pan Am).

UA: Transcons via Chicago and Denver plus routes up and down the west coast (legacy UA), Asia (from Pan Am), Micronesia (from CO). CO's regulation-era network bore little resemblance to its final network at the time of the merger except for IAH (much of which came from Texas International) and GUM. Much of the former CO network actually got shifted to and from UA over the years (CO closed hubs at DEN and LAX, where UA took over a lot of CO and Frontier (FL) routes, while CO took over CLE from UA. UA's EWR hub including Transatlantic routes came from People Express.

Then there's WN, which was originally entirely within Texas, but the biggest part of their system today is intra-California, taking over lots of routes that used to be PSA, AirCal, and Hughes Airwest, even though AA and DL are the legal successors of those airlines.

AS used to be only intra-Alaska plus Alaska-Seattle. HA used to only be inter-island and did not fly to the mainland.

32andBelow wrote:

this whole thread makes no sense. It doesn't account for focus cities or p2p flights. It's pretty impossible to garner any information from this. A better metric would be to identify certain O/D and see how far you have to deviate off the direct routing to make the connection on said airline.

While there isn't much practicality in this map from an airline network perspective it is an interesting map to look at as it gives general idea or where each airline has the strongest "coverage" on a macro level. It is obvious to most on here I would assume that each hub listed further blankets the map. I think it gives the rightful impression of where each airline is strongest on a regional level once you infer that each dot is a hub with radial coverage around its point.

Adding focus cities would probably yield nearly identical conclusions as most of DL's and AA's focal cities are in the East/SouthEast. UA doesn't have focus cities to my knowledge unless we count CLE which then yields the same conclusion the OP came to which is that UA has a northern skew with the exception of IAH.

77H

TWFlyGuy wrote:

I'm really not sure what these maps are supposed to say. Hubs are generally located in large population centers (minus CLT & SLC). While hubs are generally defined as operating to connect passengers in the most efficient way, as many know, they are in larger cities to capture local traffic. So, while these maps may suggest Delta has better coverage, a better measure would be to say what percentage of traffic can a network cover nonstop. Given the cities UA & AA have hubs in they likely win. But if you extend beyond these three carriers, your answer might be WN given their "hubs" and focus cities.

As for AA not having a Northwestern presence, I'd say the Alaska partnership suffices to serve that need. With UA & NW having a historically stronger SEA presence, it stands to reason why UA and DL have more strength there.

Great point. without including codeshare it is again not very informative. Also the largest domestic airline in the USA isn't even included in this "study"

I'm really not sure what these maps are supposed to say. Hubs are generally located in large population centers (minus CLT & SLC). While hubs are generally defined as operating to connect passengers in the most efficient way, as many know, they are in larger cities to capture local traffic. So, while these maps may suggest Delta has better coverage, a better measure would be to say what percentage of traffic can a network cover nonstop. Given the cities UA & AA have hubs in they likely win. But if you extend beyond these three carriers, your answer might be WN given their "hubs" and focus cities.

As for AA not having a Northwestern presence, I'd say the Alaska partnership suffices to serve that need. With UA & NW having a historically stronger SEA presence, it stands to reason why UA and DL have more strength there.

Also the largest domestic airline in the USA isn't even included in this "study"

Which airline is that?

I figured I would redo these correctly for sake of clarity, these are the official hubs as listed by the airline:

American Airlines:


Delta Air Lines:


United Airlines:

aeromoe wrote:

Also the largest domestic airline in the USA isn't even included in this "study"

Which airline is that?

Southwest

When you include LGA on these maps, you shouldn't link it to the hubs west of the Rockies because those are outside of the perimeter. Both LGA airlines also have hubs at JFK though, so the general appearance of the maps will be about the same.

32andBelow wrote:

aeromoe wrote:

Also the largest domestic airline in the USA isn't even included in this "study"

Which airline is that?

Southwest

Reason I ask is they fly internationally, too.

Moe