Airline Hubs:
Airline hubs can be defined as simple basic airports that also provide a transfer point service to get passengers landed there and then to their desired destinations. Hubbing in airports is a part of a model known as a hub and spoke model. In this model, travellers going anywhere are not using direct flights, instead they have to stop at the hub and change their flight to go to their final destinations. The model completely contradicts with point to point model. In point-to-point model, airlines travelled directly without staying at any hubs. There are many airlines, whose hubs are present in various cities with respect to their particular head offices.
There are many airlines that are engaged in using only single hub. On the contrary, there are airlines that use multiple hubs to facilitate passengers. One characteristic of hubs is that it is used for passenger flights along with cargo flights as well (Borenstein & Severin, 1989).
In addition to this, there are airlines that are also using focus cities. The function of focus cities is similar to hubs, but it facilitates airlines on a much smaller scale. The purpose of these focus cities is to provide hubbing, but on a smaller scale. These feeders sometimes also termed as secondary hubs. It has been observed that hub in the middle of the routes is found more effective than hubs in somewhere at the corner. If the hubs are located in the middle, they will make easy and efficient connection with the planes.
Fortress Hub:
There are types of hubs out of which, the most common one to use is fortress hub. It is an airport where one single airline is having maximum flights at the airports and enjoys a monopoly of standardized 70% or more. For instance, in the year 2010, the United States Airways had taken more than eighty-five gates out of ninety-seven. The airline contributed just about 90% of the traffic in terms of passenger at Charlotte Douglas Airport. Examples of airlines and airports engaged in using fortress hubs are Northern Kentucky International Airport. In addition to this, there are airlines like Air Tran at Atlanta international airport, Spirit Airlines at Detroit Airport and Spirit Airlines at Dallas Fort International Airport (Lederman & Mara, 2008).
Spoke-hub sharing paradigm:
A model, formally known as spoke-hub sharing paradigm is a system of connections linked together like a wheel. The function of this model involves movement of all the traffic along the spokes that are connected to the hub at the centre. This model is often used in the airline industry and for transporting industry in broader terms. In addition to this, the model also used in the computer and IT industry as well, in which it is termed as the star network.
Advantages of Spoke-hub model:
In this model, the routes are often small that in turn resulting in more efficient use of carrying resources. For instance, most of the planes are more likely to take their flights with full capacity. Moreover, each flight will be able to have more than one flight in a day. There are certain activities that are complex and complicated in nature. These activities include package accounting and sorting. Such activities can also perform at hubs rather than at the node. Because of its simplicity, new spokes can be created easily.
Disadvantages of spoke-hub model:
Because of its rigid characteristics, the model becomes very centralized and thus makes it difficult to perform operations that are on a daily basis. It might have undesirable results because of the frequent changes in hubs. Along with this, it might become complex or even impossible to handle higher demands of two spokes on some infrequent periods. For the network operator, one of the most important things to do is route scheduling. It becomes more complex when the operator needs to manage its inadequate resource cautiously. The operator is required to analyse the timings and flights that will land in the hub to make overall operations more effective and efficient.
There can be a bottleneck in the hub that may create a bottleneck in the overall procedure. In addition to this, the capacity of cargo is dependent upon the capacity of the hub and thus, delays or inefficiency in the hub may lead to hindrances in the overall networking system (Lee & Darin, 2005).
Airline hubbing in an international competitive environment:
Prodded by the changes that have been brought by deregulation, findings and research about on carrier networking in a focused environment as being continuous. The objective today has been towards enhancing understanding of how airlines arrange their systems when they are on the double unconstrained and unprotected by government regulation. Such a comprehension is important, in the short term, managing Infrastructure and exploitation.....................
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