jabird

Would anyone like to help me settle a score?

A senior executive in the UK aviation industry claimed that Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport, is "not a hub airport".

Now I've been in this game for almost a decade now, and I've seen wacky ideas come and go, but never could I imagine EGLL being described as anything other than a hub.

Would anyone dispute this definition?

On that basis (thanks PF) - Timisoara in Romania is a hub as, despite its relatively small size, Carpatair use it to provide transfers between various niche airports.

On an even smaller level, St Martin, much loved by spotters for its over-beach landings, is also a hub, as Winair bring people in and out from numerous other nearby islands using the legendary Twotters.

So on what basis could EGLL possibly not be a hub?

Apparently, it fails to meet such a definition because it does not operate the same system of in and outbound flight banks that is used, for example, at CDG.

Surely that just means that it isn't the same kind of hub as CDG.

But still very much a hub.

Would anyone care to differ?

The SSK

Of course Heathrow is a hub for BA. I doubt you would say the same for Gatwick.

BA/LHR never developed the same ‘wave’ system as some Continental hubs, partly because it was already too congested to permit the necessary rescheduling.

It also (probably) has a smaller proportion of feeder services from secondary cities, again because of the congestion and the high opportunity cost of using slots for such services – which either have to make a significant contribution to the network flows, or get shuffled off to LGW.

There are differences arising from its location at the edge of Europe. It is very well placed to pick up transatlantic transfer traffic, much less so on routes heading East.

The most exquisite example of a hub that I ever came across was by Piedmont, somewhere in the Midwest – I think it may have been Columbus OH. The structure was as follows:

Every morning around 8:15, eight 737s would fly in from various smaller cities to the North of the hub – places like Green Bay and Grand Banks. They would arrive within a 10-minute window. 20 minutes later they would all depart, for much bigger cities to the South and East. A little after midday they would all stage back through in the other direction. Then the cycle would be repeated with a mid afternoon southbound wave and a late-ish evening northbound wave.

Piedmont had no other services at this airport. So with eight aircraft they generated 32 daily departures, to sixteen destinations, in a network of 80 city-pairs. And for 22h30 out of 24h, there was no Piedmont aircraft on the apron of Columbus (if indeed that’s where it was).

Hubs come in all shapes and sizes, but I still think of that as a benchmark against which to compare them.

jabird

On purely logical grounds, a hub for at least one airline counts as a hub, so I win

Double hubs - ie two airlines offering a genuinely expansive network of flights instead of just a few niche routes - are extremely rare. I think ORD & LAX would be the two obvious contenders in the USA, and.....

Triple hubs - even rarer. Yet for now at least - Bmi serve a mix of European routes + their north African & Asian routes. I think Virgin is certainly a hub operation, even if they may rely on others (esp BMI) to feed them.


Although it must have a far higher ratio of point to point, are BA really interested in serving LGW-MAN, EDI & GLA just for the domestic traffic?

Some might use the term "focus city" perhaps?

davidjohnson6

Does Narita in Japan count as a quadruple hub, or just a triple hub if ANA and United are deemed to be effectively the same airline ?

rareair

I think Piedmont's hub was DAY, through the "D" gates which are currently blocked off

Halmyre

I've flown BA from Edinburgh to Bari, and Naples to Edinburgh, via Gro^H^Hatwick, and I think both routes are still available, so doesn't that make Gatwick a hub?

Fairdealfrank

Of course LHR is a "hub" airport, in fact it is a triple hub (for now) with BA, BD and VS based there with hub operations. Triple hubs are rare outside the USA, the only other that immediately comes to mind is Bombay (AI, IT and 9W).

The reason that LHR doesn't operate a system of flight banks or a ‘wave’ system like CDG and DXB, and not every hub does, is partly because of congestion, but also because of the the high number of frequencies between LHR and some key destinations on most days, and often on several airlines.

A few examples (these are maximum frequencies):

5 flights/day to BKK compared to 2 or 3 from AMS, CDG or FRA
6 flights/day to BOM compared to 1 or 2 from AMS, CDG or FRA
5 flights/day to CAI compared to 2 from AMS, CDG or FRA
10 flights/day to DXB compared to 3 or 4 from AMS, CDG or FRA
8 flights/day to HKG compared to 2 from AMS, CDG or FRA
27 flights/day to JFK/EWR compared to 5 to 10 from AMS, CDG or FRA
5 flights/day to JNB compared to 1 or 2 from AMS, CDG or FRA
3 flights/day to NBO compared to 0 or 2 from AMS, CDG or FRA
5 flights/day to NRT/HND compared to 2 or 3 from AMS, CDG or FRA
7 flights/day to SIN compared to 2 or 4 from AMS, CDG or FRA
4 flights/day to SYD compared to 0 or 1 from AMS, CDG or FRA

The same applies on other north American routes as well. There are also more third country carriers on many of these routes because the UK is more amenable to fifth freedom rights than some other governments.

That said, it explains (together with the paucity of available and affordable slots) the lack of overall destinations from LHR compared to the other 3 main European hubs.

Geographical location within the continent is irrelevant when it comes to trans Atlantic and far east traffic - the four main European hubs are relatively close to each other and American ones are all over the place.

However, cultural ties, trading and linguistic links and, of course, politics are relevant. Compare the spatial distribution of destinations in Africa for BA and AF, or in the West Indies between BA/VS, and KL. Look at the comprehensive route network of IB and TP in South America and BA's in north America. LH‘s destinations in central and east Europe tells another story.

As for LGW, it is more of a “focus” airport for BA and VS than a hub, as because their LGW routes are mostly origin/destination leisure traffic. The “no frills” carriers do not operate transfer systems - all their traffic is origin/destination, even if pax are physically changing planes. So although LGW is U2’s main base, it is not a hub airport for that reason.


Hope this helps you settle a score, Jabird, you are obviously correct. The only way LHR ceases to be a hub is in Silver’s dreams, and everyone else’s nightmares, where all the airlines have deserted LHR for a sandbank in the Thames!

jabird

Not quite. All the underground rail tunnels would remain, and the site would be redeveloped. In order to make best use of these sub-surface links, a "transit oriented" development would be built on the site - T4 might go, but Crossrail would remain as would the tube. This new "Heathrow City" would have buses coming in and out from all over - so it would very much remain as a transport hub, just not of the winged variety

does that make it 2-0?

Fairdealfrank

Don't panic, LHR isn't closing. No politician wants to regenerate the Thames gateway, which already has 3 airports (LCY, SEN, MSE), at the cost of turning the Thames Valley into a ghost town! What would be the point? That would concentrate MPs' minds a lot more than aircraft noise.

The airlines have invested millions acquiring slots, so they aren't going, especially those recently transferred over from LGW. The owners are building and rebuilding terminals, etc., so they too are spending the money. Too much investment has gone into it already and the infrastructure and the expertise is already there.

So, don't have nightmares!

jabird

FDF - We both know LHR isn't going anywhere just yet, I was just saying what would happen if it closed. In that respect, Silver is right about it becoming a major redevelopment zone, but he is wrong about its value for change of use from inherently complex and highly customies airport terminal.

I've always felt the compulsory purchase issue would be the biggest stumbling block to making LHR close. Now as for slots - how would you transfer an asset who's value depends on there being congestion at the tangible asset that the airport is?

<answer on the Thames airport thread, this is going OT>

Fairdealfrank

Jabird, if Silver Airport was built and became a success and all the existing airlines, freight operators, LHR expertise, ancilliary industries and business headquarters shifted over there, the Thames Valley would become a series of ghost towns.

Alternatively it would be reduced to a dormitory area for commuters working up in London, attracted by reasonable transport links and the consequent fall in house prices (like Essex and Kent now).

Either way it would be as difficult to redevelop the LHR site for business/industry as it is to attract business/industry to the current areas of high unemployment.

The biggest stumbling block to LHR closure would be MPs concerned about holding on to their seats. It's a much bigger issue than people realise!

WHBM

Correct. It may be a major centre of operations, particularly for BA, but a hub is an operation designed around substantial transfers of passengers from inbound to outbound. It is the opposite of O&D traffic. Now Heathrow has huge O&D traffic, but as far as transfers go it is a very poor effort, with seemingly little serious effort put into them. The domestic flights to Edinburgh etc are most certainly not scheduled specifically to offer connections; those that do exist are a chance.

It's the same at say London Waterloo train station, the busiest in the UK but not a hub, as very few people change trains there; everyone else arrives/leaves by other means.

Correct again. In fact it's a perfect little example of this.

Not really, as Winair are not particularly integrated with those other airlines; it's a separate operation.

I've never particularly noticed CDG as running flight banks. And again, in my experience the vast majority of its pax leave the airport by other means.

LN-KGL

I agree with you jabird, this is a thread about "What makes a hub airport?"

The true name for a hub is an airline hub. An airline hub is an airport that an airline uses as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination.

An airline like British Airways have three London hubs; Heathrow, Gatwick and London City. The last one is a BA Cityflyer hub. It is possible at ba.com to get tickets from Edinburgh to Zurich with transfer at LCY, and it is no surprise that transfering at LCY gives the shortest travel time between the two cities flying with BA. One thing wonders me though, why is it not possible to bye a ticket on ba.com from let us say New York to Copenhagen with transfer at London City?

It not only the legacy carriers that have hubs, even some of the low-cost carriers are hub carriers. Low-cost carriers like the two largest European, Ryanair and easyJet, have only bases and no hubs (they only sell point to point ticket with no transfer). Then there are carriers that have low costs but still offers transfer tickets, and examples of this are Air Berlin and Norwegian Air Shuttle.

The SSK

It's a lot more than just the existence of schedules that line up. The infrastructure has to be in place, to fast-track passengers between flights (with due allowance for inevitable delays) but just as importantly their baggage. It may be entirely possible to 'hub' through Gatwick between EDI and NAP, or London City between EDI and ZRH, and for the occasional passengers all should go smoothly, but for the massive flows at LHR (and CDG/AMS/FRA) there has to be huge investment in the systems that facilitate those flows.

And generally speaking, the transfer passengers get the benefit of all that investment for free, they tend to get better deals than the point-to-point travellers (as per recent threads on the SLF board).

jabird

From LHR's own stats, 2010:

Now 35% is not a majority, but it is still substantial. I have never seen a hub defined by the percentage of transfer passengers. The only way such a definition might exist would be an airport which only facilitated transfers. I have seen that on the railways (Cornbrook, Manchester Metro, now has an entrance), but not in aviation.

So considering that the facilities in the terminal exist to enable transfers (airside desks, through handling of baggage and so on), and that a sizeable proportion of people still use them, LHR is surely still a hub.

Just because many people think it is badly designed, or just because transfer between different terminal areas can be a nuisance, does not diminish the fact that it is still a hub, especially T5.

ZOOKER

What makes a hub airport?

Spokes.

Seemples.

jabird

But Stansted has lots of routes (spokes)? We tend to call that a base.

No so seeeeeemples

The SSK

Way back when, Dan-Air used to fly Gatwick-Newcastle. They also had a flight Newcastle-Kristiansand in Norway, a route that they had flown long, long before the Gatwick service. The two actually connected quite well, whether by accident or design I know not.

Anyway, Kristiansand was not served direct from London and was not that easy to get to. Consequently, Dan-Air's connection was published in the schedules guides and maybe even in the early CRS. I have no doubt whatsoever that many passengers - what...hundreds per year? - used this option. That did not make Newcastle a hub airport, except 'in theory'.