well said - do you work for EK Government Affairs aka OpenSky Magazine?
Originally Posted by
aviation_enthus
Even before Covid there was plenty of experts predicting the end of the ME super hub due to the 787/350.
Anchorage may have been a hub in the past but it clearly lost out when longer range aircraft appeared.
Geography never changes. Regardless of what aircraft are in service or will come in the future, the fact remains, the ME is within 8 hours of 2/3rds of the world’s population. Despite the USA being so awesome, Anchorage did not have that advantage. It has been mentioned many times by industry experts that the ‘sweet spot’ for most wide body flights is around 8 hours. This is because the extra fuel required to go further starts to become exponentially more expensive.
Something most of you don’t seem to understand is the mix of passengers on any EK/QR service. It is very rare to see more than 20 passengers on any flight travelling between two destinations. For example a flight from SEA-DXB, would have passengers connecting to over 40 destinations, so the average is 7.5 pax per connection.
That means a direct flight between most parts of the world WILL NEVER HAPPEN. There just isn’t enough demand. So hubs will always exist. Hubs are designed to bring together passengers travelling to one destination to make the whole flight profitable.
Direct point to point flights WILL take some of the demand away from the ME. But it will never kill the business model as you are suggesting. Geography and pure economics will always win.