The entire aviation market shifting towards the Point to Point model, which is only accelerated by the introduction of the highly efficient ULH aircrafts like B787 and A350 and long haul aircrafts like A321LR. But an important factor to weigh in is the fare.

The fare to fly direct esp. in ULH, thin routes is almost 4 times as much the route with a connection. The consumers, favor cheaper fares than to fly directly with just a 3hr difference.

In Hub and Spoke model, airlines can bring back effcient VLAs like B747-8 and A380 to connect major hubs and the consumers can choose any domestic airlines to reach their final destination. Since there wont be any direct routes, the VLAs would be full which would justify the operating costs for the carrier. Furthermore, the consumers can enjoy the much spacious cabin. All together, the fare would be a far cry from the fares to fly direct.

Is this scenario possible?

Hub and spoke never went away, no need for a “return”. It’s the business model of BA, KL, AF, LH, LX, EK, EY, QR, UA, DL, AA amongst others!

The market is far from shifting away from Hub and Spoke especially in the USA. Its an intrinsic part of the transport structure and applied business model replacing railways found in other developed markets for commuter and short business trip.
The exisitance is for effective and relatively short to medium distance journeys, with international tags added into the mix , however these not the primary revenue streams.

Outside of the US it’s much less prevalent on those shorter journeys in the main, however in contrast to the US is primarily used and targeted at feeding long haul international operations in the main .

Indeed Emirates existence is exclusively based on long haul Hub and Spoke.

With China small regional hubs are developing, however that market is not all it seems.

However staged journeys have never been popular within the European industry.
An extensive network of point to point services on primary routes has existed for many many years however it’s true to say the three major legacies have centred their regional operations over a few Hubs in recent times however again mainly to feed and support longer sectors.

In London BA operate Gatwick as a primary point to point leisure operation through.

Historically Northern Europeans have traveled to the Mediterranean and Canaries on packaged holidays that included charter flights from a hoist of regional airports. In more recent times with the movement towards online bookings many of those charter style services have declined as people build bespoke holidays online, however the flexible fares carriers are replacing them offering value point to point services.

studentdrbev wrote:

The entire aviation market shifting towards the Point to Point model, which is only accelerated by the introduction of the highly efficient ULH aircrafts like B787 and A350 and long haul aircrafts like A321LR. But an important factor to weigh in is the fare.

How can something return if it never went away?

Have you checked IATA's passenger numbers? While Point to Point traffic is growing, growth at hubs is greater by far. Hubs are getting busier and busier.

Crazy thread. Hub and spoke is used by almost every airline in the USA passenger and cargo.

Great, yet another quad lovers that basically want to argue that airlines should buy tons of A380s.

As many already said, hub and spoke never went away. At worse, LCC may run focus city-esque operation instead of giant hub, but even p2p flights on those carriers are not as random as it seems.

God, I certainly hope not! Yes, I know H&S is still hugely dominant, but it's been diluted somewhat as shown by all the US cities that are getting TATL service and all the secondary cities in China that are getting intercontinental service. Even though I'm retired and consequently have to pay my own way after decades of employer sponsored travel, I will always pay more for that non-stop flight. Always. And, nobody loves the A380 more than I do. I think it's gorgeous and quite comfy. But I've always hated hub and spoke, and if an increase in P2P flights (although H&S will never go away, dammit) means saying bye bye to the A380, it's well worth it. The only time taking a connecting flight makes sense is if I can take a stop over of a few days, but it seems as if fewer airlines are offering this as an option.

It will still remain,with more long and thin hub-spoke routes and less reliance on the hub-hub model.

Socrates17 wrote:

God, I certainly hope not! Yes, I know H&S is still hugely dominant, but it's been diluted somewhat as shown by all the US cities that are getting TATL service and all the secondary cities in China that are getting intercontinental service.

That is still Hub & Spoke. For example, if someone wanted to fly from BNA to CDG , they'd potentially fly BNA-JFK-CDG; now with a new BA service it'll be BNA-LHR-CDG. BNA is still a spoke and LHR replaces JFK as a hub. If anything, smaller cities require to be connected to hubs as there's not enough traffic to warrant O/D.

There's not many 787's and A350's in the air that don't start or end their flight at some sort of a hub.

It's just Boeing marketing hype.

iadadd wrote:

Socrates17 wrote:

God, I certainly hope not! Yes, I know H&S is still hugely dominant, but it's been diluted somewhat as shown by all the US cities that are getting TATL service and all the secondary cities in China that are getting intercontinental service.

That is still Hub & Spoke. For example, if someone wanted to fly from BNA to CDG , they'd potentially fly BNA-JFK-CDG; now with a new BA service it'll be BNA-LHR-CDG. BNA is still a spoke and LHR replaces JFK as a hub. If anything, smaller cities require to be connected to hubs as there's not enough traffic to warrant O/D.

That's a valid point. Chengdu to Prague on Sichuan is still Hub to Spoke since Chengdu is Sichuan's hub. I was responding more to what I thought was the OP's ultimate point about bringing back VLAs, which won't happen on routes like that.

iadadd wrote:

Socrates17 wrote:

God, I certainly hope not! Yes, I know H&S is still hugely dominant, but it's been diluted somewhat as shown by all the US cities that are getting TATL service and all the secondary cities in China that are getting intercontinental service.

That is still Hub & Spoke. For example, if someone wanted to fly from BNA to CDG , they'd potentially fly BNA-JFK-CDG; now with a new BA service it'll be BNA-LHR-CDG. BNA is still a spoke and LHR replaces JFK as a hub. If anything, smaller cities require to be connected to hubs as there's not enough traffic to warrant O/D.

Interestingly, what these new 788 flights potentially reduce is hub-hub flying. BNA-ATL-CDG-HAJ becomes BNA-LHR-HAJ.

I would counter that unlike in Europe the US has yet to embrace a tertiary airport mode in a point to point system that Ryanair has championed. Skybus tried but having an author as CEO and using CMH as a hub were huge mistakes.

flyingcat wrote:

I would counter that unlike in Europe the US has yet to embrace a tertiary airport mode in a point to point system that Ryanair has championed. Skybus tried but having an author as CEO and using CMH as a hub were huge mistakes.

Unlike in Europe, primary and secondary US airports generally have slots and gates available at reasonable prices. I'm not sure that the US needs the Ryanair model; certainly Skybus is not evidence that there is space for that sort of carrier in the States.

Hub and spoke has not gone away.

This thread is like someone read the 787 marketing material and then ignored what has actually happened.

Arguing with a metaphor is difficult. Passengers going between the largest airports expect non-stop. For most of the rest there is an expectation of 1 stop. The flier goes from a tertiary airport to an airport with a non-stop to their final destination. 787s and 350s are making this increasingly possible. Fewer than ever are doing the dreaded flight to a hub for a long flight to the next hub and finally a shorter hop to final destination. Those going from one obscure place to another obscure place may have to settle for a multi-flight trip.

You need significant hub-hub traffic to make a "hub and spoke" model require VLA's, there's very few markets where hub-hub is necessary. Even the smallest market will generally just mean a different hub to change in.

The few routes with enough traffic to sustain VLA's will end on two hubs (NY-LON and LON-DXB) but even that has too much O&D to make the connection fun, there's very few markets that even flying littleBigTown-NY and then LON-petiteGrandeVille makes sense, let alone actually contributes to the viability of the hub-hub leg.

skipness1E wrote:

Hub and spoke never went away, no need for a “return”. It’s the business model of BA, KL, AF, LH, LX, EK, EY, QR, UA, DL, AA amongst others!

IMO, even the US legacy carriers, especially DL, are shifting towards P2P. Routes like PIT/EWR/RDU/IND-CDG, while technically connecting to a hub, are in the spirit of P2P. DL's growing presence in CUN is acting in the same way.

Cubsrule wrote:

flyingcat wrote:

I would counter that unlike in Europe the US has yet to embrace a tertiary airport mode in a point to point system that Ryanair has championed. Skybus tried but having an author as CEO and using CMH as a hub were huge mistakes.

Unlike in Europe, primary and secondary US airports generally have slots and gates available at reasonable prices. I'm not sure that the US needs the Ryanair model; certainly Skybus is not evidence that there is space for that sort of carrier in the States.

Isn't G4 that type of carrier to the most practical extent possible?

cledaybuck wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

flyingcat wrote:

I would counter that unlike in Europe the US has yet to embrace a tertiary airport mode in a point to point system that Ryanair has championed. Skybus tried but having an author as CEO and using CMH as a hub were huge mistakes.

Unlike in Europe, primary and secondary US airports generally have slots and gates available at reasonable prices. I'm not sure that the US needs the Ryanair model; certainly Skybus is not evidence that there is space for that sort of carrier in the States.

Isn't G4 that type of carrier to the most practical extent possible?

In the leisure space, sure, though some of their "destination" airports are fairly large hubs (LAS, FLL), and others are primary airports (MSY, SAN, SAV, SJU).

BWIAirport wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

Hub and spoke never went away, no need for a “return”. It’s the business model of BA, KL, AF, LH, LX, EK, EY, QR, UA, DL, AA amongst others!

IMO, even the US legacy carriers, especially DL, are shifting towards P2P. Routes like PIT/EWR/RDU/IND-CDG, while technically connecting to a hub, are in the spirit of P2P. DL's growing presence in CUN is acting in the same way.

None of the CDG flying is in the spirit of P2P. It's in the spirit of having a metal neutral JV with AF that allows them to fly to what then is effectively their own hub.

Point to Point is far superior in the economics of getting people in point A to point B.

Hub & Spoke is far superior in giving people in point A more options to point B and the ability to also get to points C, D, E, F, G, etc. It’s also far better in managing demand variations.

P2P only works when an airline can get enough passengers at a high enough yield to support their P2P service. There are countless city pairs which do not meet this criteria, and hub & spoke are the best option to making money off of that traffic.

There are a few reasons why P2P has been growing:
--Fewer competitors make the odds better that any given airline may find enough demand for their potential P2P flights.

--Manufacturers have been introducing more efficient long-haul aircraft with 200-240 seats into the international segment traditionally dominated by aircraft with 270-380 seats.

--The world economy has been doing pretty well in the past couple of years. When recession hurts demand fewer markets have the oomph to support P2P.

--Fuel prices have been well below the dizzying highs a few years back which airlines feared would be the new normal. Lower fuel costs mean there’s more ability to try out potentially marginal P2P flying.


I’m not so sure that the wave of P2P flying is necessarily as robust as some might think. Many of the new flights between the US and Europe do indeed allow passengers to bypass connections at ORD, JFK, ATL, etc. But they still serve hubs in Europe so they are not point-to-point at all. They are simply new spokes from European hubs. Some of them are made more plausible by some of these same trends, but they are not P2P. They are long/thin hub spokes, not point-to-point.

It’s not an insignificant point in this discussion that Southwest has steadily moved towards de facto hubs with increasingly-coordinated intentional connecting banks at a number of cities. Hub & Spoke has far too many advantages to not remain the rule in spite of renewed P2P life.

I'm sorry, I would answer your question but I was too busy running through ATL to catch a connecting flight.

Cubsrule wrote:

iadadd wrote:

Socrates17 wrote:

God, I certainly hope not! Yes, I know H&S is still hugely dominant, but it's been diluted somewhat as shown by all the US cities that are getting TATL service and all the secondary cities in China that are getting intercontinental service.

That is still Hub & Spoke. For example, if someone wanted to fly from BNA to CDG , they'd potentially fly BNA-JFK-CDG; now with a new BA service it'll be BNA-LHR-CDG. BNA is still a spoke and LHR replaces JFK as a hub. If anything, smaller cities require to be connected to hubs as there's not enough traffic to warrant O/D.

Interestingly, what these new 788 flights potentially reduce is hub-hub flying. BNA-ATL-CDG-HAJ becomes BNA-LHR-HAJ.

An A350 could do that too. Just sayin. The easiest way to get an a.net Airbus fanboy's panties in a twist is to say "point to point". It's like curry to a pisshead. (Credit to Bricktop Polford for that line).

Socrates17 wrote:

The only time taking a connecting flight makes sense is if I can take a stop over of a few days, but it seems as if fewer airlines are offering this as an option.

Actually, all the legacy carriers I know of offer this option...so I don't know why you have difficulties finding a few day stopover itinerary...

BWIAirport wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

Hub and spoke never went away, no need for a “return”. It’s the business model of BA, KL, AF, LH, LX, EK, EY, QR, UA, DL, AA amongst others!

IMO, even the US legacy carriers, especially DL, are shifting towards P2P. Routes like PIT/EWR/RDU/IND-CDG, while technically connecting to a hub, are in the spirit of P2P. DL's growing presence in CUN is acting in the same way.

For CUN, it's not really just DL that fly P2P routes anyway. UA to AUS, MSY, SAT? AA to MCI, PIT, RDU, BNA? Plus most of those routes are seasonal and you're still talking about 1/wk (Mostly Saturday only IIRC) flights to a leisure destination.

And the only reason why you see AA/DL/UA running those routes is b/c US doesn't really have any "leisure" airlines (Ok, G4 is technically one, but that's about it) like Sunwing or TUI anyway. You don't see, for example, BA running EMA-CUN.

At the end, did hub-and-spoke really went away? ATL is still by far the busiest airport in US (and the world), CLT is 9th busiest in US with something like 30% O&D. 18/20 busiest airports in US is a hub of US3, with the two exceptions being LAS and MCO, both having huge tourism O&D. And even then, LAS is more or less a focus city for WN (along with G4), while MCO is one for both B6 and WN. Looking further down the list, you have to get to #27 for the first non-hub and non-big focus city airport in SAN.

skipness1E wrote:

Hub and spoke never went away, no need for a “return”. It’s the business model of BA, KL, AF, LH, LX, EK, EY, QR, UA, DL, AA amongst others!

Almost exactly what I was going to write.

knope2001 wrote:

Point to Point is far superior in the economics of getting people in point A to point B. (...)

Not quite sure you mean what you wrote. Flying someone nonstop is far cheaper than flying them with an intermediate stop - assuming all aircraft involved are of similar size.

Widespread point to point service would lead to smaller aircraft, so its superior economics would be dented by a higher cost per seat.

The whole premise of this thread is hilarious. Truth does seem to have taken a dive recently!

As has been said before, Hub and Spoke is still going strong, but with some changes.
1. The focus city: a hub that doesn't try to make connections. This includes Allegiant's entire model, VS at Manchester, and DL's focus cities. Because an airline still has a big presence at one end, it's not a true point-to-point model.
2. Smaller spokes connecting to more and distant hubs: this is what things like BNA-LHR, IND-CDG, etc are. The existing hubs are being connected by a hub carrier or its JV partner to a spoke that could not be served profitably in the past. Still a hub and a spoke.
The fall of the VLA can be attributed to the decline of "Bridge" (spoke-hub-hub-spoke) routings. Since the hub-to-hub segments are less taxed, VLAs are not as needed.

I agree with all the posters who have said hubs never left and are here to stay.

Imho the fall of the VLA aircraft is due to airlines wisening up and retaining flexibility. You can't split an A380 in half during a downturn in the world economy but if you were running 2 A330s back to back 2 hours apart, you can park one without having to cease service on that city pair.

incitatus wrote:

knope2001 wrote:

Point to Point is far superior in the economics of getting people in point A to point B. (...)

Not quite sure you mean what you wrote. Flying someone nonstop is far cheaper than flying them with an intermediate stop - assuming all aircraft involved are of similar size.

Widespread point to point service would lead to smaller aircraft, so its superior economics would be dented by a higher cost per seat.

The whole premise of this thread is hilarious. Truth does seem to have taken a dive recently!

Say you have 100 cities. To connect them all, bidirectionally, P2P would take like 10,000 flights per day (or 5,000 maybe). Say each flight costs $10,000. So that is $50-$100 million per day.

Using a hub, those same connections need only 200 flights per day, so $2 million per day. That is a 25-50x savings. Or a 96-98% cost reduction.

So, hubs are still around.

Or better yet, 3 A321NeoLRs, dropping to 2 during a recession....haha

OP, is your home airport a fortress hub of any airline?

Southwest's spoke-to-spoke (i.e. point-to-point (P2P)) city-pairs are dwindling every year. After the AirTran acquisition, WN got too big to continue operating as they did prior to the merger. Of course, they still have a modest number of P2P city-pairs (one stop direct flight with no change of aircraft).

JetBlue and VX/AS operate as hub (or focus city)-to-spoke operations.

Frontier, Allegiant and Spirit are perhaps the only mainline carriers that operate spoke-to-spoke flights on a daily (though often on sub-daily) frequencies.

There are lesser niche players, like Boutique Air and Silver Airways that operate spoke-to-spoke.

cheeken wrote:

Socrates17 wrote:

The only time taking a connecting flight makes sense is if I can take a stop over of a few days, but it seems as if fewer airlines are offering this as an option.

Actually, all the legacy carriers I know of offer this option...so I don't know why you have difficulties finding a few day stopover itinerary...

The below and several other articles like it. I regularly search "What airlines offer free stopovers" on Google. I haven't started checking with airlines directly because my choice of airline/route would be primarily determined by potential stopovers and I feel guilty wasting ticket agents' time. (I'm retired and vacation time isn't an issue any more.) For instance, in travling NYC to Seoul I'd go the long way 'round if I could get a week in Europe without much of an upcharge. I used to travel regularly NYC to SYD for work and got massively spoiled by Around the World fares, which in J were often cheaper than co-workers got for round-trip JFK<>SYD. One time I stopped off in BKK and IST on the way home. Those fares are no longer a bargain, it seems.

I will take your advice and start checking directly with potential airlines.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/map-happ ... 83122.html

Many Americans are really worried about the environment and “4 engine “ planes are viewed as old and wastefull ...

COSPN wrote:

Many Americans are really worried about the environment and “4 engine “ planes are viewed as old and wastefull ...

The people that REALLY care about 4-holers being old and wasteful are not your average Americans, but rather, the 1%-er executives at airlines .

Seriously, not everyone really know the ins-and-outs of airline industry, nor even what plane they're really flying on. If some a.nutter airline decided to fly 747 on short-haul domestic routes in US, you really think there would be some outcry on how bad it's for environment? I doubt it.

brian415 wrote:

Frontier, Allegiant and Spirit are perhaps the only mainline carriers that operate spoke-to-spoke flights on a daily (though often on sub-daily) frequencies.

Spirit network I would say is similar to WN - they simply have a ton of focus cities that they fly routes out of. And Spirit's FLL operation is almost hub-and-spoke like anyway.

The “enviros “ in the US are small but very loud and after the Volkswagen “diesel cheat” scam they know Europe can’t really be trusted to help the environment

studentdrbev wrote:

The entire aviation market shifting towards the Point to Point model

That's far from being a fact, not to say untrue.

Passengers do not like connecting. Airlines that offer direct service have a competitive advantage. That will never change. Who actually WANTS to fly thru a hub? If I can avoid LHR or many others I will every time.

COSPN wrote:

The “enviros “ in the US are small but very loud and after the Volkswagen “diesel cheat” scam they know Europe can’t really be trusted to help the environment

I'm sorry, but what does the VW diesel scandal have to do with quad-engine aircraft?

Flighty wrote:

incitatus wrote:

knope2001 wrote:

Point to Point is far superior in the economics of getting people in point A to point B. (...)

Not quite sure you mean what you wrote. Flying someone nonstop is far cheaper than flying them with an intermediate stop - assuming all aircraft involved are of similar size.

Widespread point to point service would lead to smaller aircraft, so its superior economics would be dented by a higher cost per seat.

The whole premise of this thread is hilarious. Truth does seem to have taken a dive recently!

Say you have 100 cities. To connect them all, bidirectionally, P2P would take like 10,000 flights per day (or 5,000 maybe). Say each flight costs $10,000. So that is $50-$100 million per day.

Using a hub, those same connections need only 200 flights per day, so $2 million per day. That is a 25-50x savings. Or a 96-98% cost reduction.

So, hubs are still around.

In case anybody cares, to cover all 100 cities with 99 connections to the other cities would take... drumroll please... 9900 flights per day. A hub, by contrast needs 2 flights from each city to the hub EXCEPT the hub itself. So that is 198 flights per day. OCD is relieved now.

Arion640 wrote:

There's not many 787's and A350's in the air that don't start or end their flight at some sort of a hub.

It's just Boeing marketing hype.

“Some sort of hub” is a crafty way of wording it. Where do TUI and Norwegian fit into your view of the market?

Given a region with 100 cities the Pareto principle would have the largest 20 with 80% of the traffic, hence most of them would be P2P (or maybe 80% of them). Say the remaining 80 cities would generally go to the nearest hub, a few to other hubs, and a few (say 20%) P2P to another of the 80 smaller airports. As a guess this would be far more likely than the two simple geometric extremes mentioned.

787 321LR etc are not eroding creating more point to point as much they are creating more points from the hubs

COSPN wrote:

Many Americans are really worried about the environment and “4 engine “ planes are viewed as old and wastefull ...

We do? The vast majority of people flying probably could not tell you what kind of airplane they are flying on, and really do not care as long as it gets them where they want to be. The people who care about the environment are being pushed away by the current administration in D.C. As for 4-holers, it's doubtful a U.S. carrier will ever fly them again (pax carrier).

caoimhin wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

There's not many 787's and A350's in the air that don't start or end their flight at some sort of a hub.

It's just Boeing marketing hype.

“Some sort of hub” is a crafty way of wording it. Where do TUI and Norwegian fit into your view of the market?

What I said was is that there aren't many 787's in the air that aren't flying from a hub. Those are a prime example of airlines that don't.

You have named 2 airlines, But if you looked through a list of 787 operators i'd say 70-80 pc of them are a legacy carrier with a hub.

If you mean will customers go back to double hubbing when there is now a direct flight? No. As a majority of posters noted, most travel is hubbing. It is just better done.

With the NEO, MAX, and C-series, more P2P routes will be viable. I don't wish to stop on the way from Los Angeles to Florida as in the good old days. There is no need. I do not wish to hub in HNL to go to Maui, there is no need.

Cubsrule wrote:

flyingcat wrote:

I would counter that unlike in Europe the US has yet to embrace a tertiary airport mode in a point to point system that Ryanair has championed. Skybus tried but having an author as CEO and using CMH as a hub were huge mistakes.

Unlike in Europe, primary and secondary US airports generally have slots and gates available at reasonable prices. I'm not sure that the US needs the Ryanair model; certainly Skybus is not evidence that there is space for that sort of carrier in the States.

Agreed. If there is an opportunity, G4 and NK will find it. But for now, little need except for a few cities. The EU has a lack of airport infrastructure problem. The US East coast hubs, LCCs, and ME3 thank the Nimbys.

Lightsaber

frmrCapCadet wrote:

Given a region with 100 cities the Pareto principle would have the largest 20 with 80% of the traffic, hence most of them would be P2P (or maybe 80% of them). Say the remaining 80 cities would generally go to the nearest hub, a few to other hubs, and a few (say 20%) P2P to another of the 80 smaller airports. As a guess this would be far more likely than the two simple geometric extremes mentioned.

Agreed, for human traffic P2P is a real thing (for big cities). Is 80% of traffic volume P2P? That's an answerable question. I think it is closer to the other way around. There is a point where it is sometimes lower cost to fly JFK-LAX nonstop, and certainly passengers will pay a premium. I think that is the driver of P2P passenger service.

For freight however, FX and UPS seem to use an extreme hub model. It is the cheapest way to link the country. If anybody knows P2P FX or UPS routes it would be interesting. I see none.