PanAm330 From United States of America, joined Mar 2004, 2601 posts, RR: 10 Posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 5016 times:
Just what the title says. It's just interesting to think about, to me, anyhow. I can think of a few larger cities lacking a carrier with a hub at their airport.
1. St. Louis, MO (STL)/ Lambert Field
-Sadly, TWA is no more .
2. Boston, MA (BOS)/ Logan International
-There really is no "official" hub here, but US and DL both have good-sized operations here.
3. Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL)/ Hollywood International
-If you don't count Miami as part of greater FLL, then this leaves a gigantic city with just a lot of service by a lot of carriers. Some may- in the future- make this a nicely-sized operation, most probably B6.
Any cities you can think of that are fairly large, that lack a "main" carrier? All replies are appreciated !
P.S. Mods, please do not move to Polls & Prefs. forum; it really isn't a poll.
PanAm747 From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 4242 posts, RR: 10 Reply 2, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4965 times:
I know this was covered once before, but it's worth a re-visit. If anyone knows the link to the last thread (now in the archives), please post!!
It's worth pointing out that we need to be talking metropolitan areas, not the actual city. For example, MSP is in neither Minneapolis OR St Paul, but serves that metro area.
As I recall, my home airport of SAN came out as the largest metro area without a hub. What kind of hub our tiny little airport in the corner of the country could have, I don't know...
Plain city-wise, San Antonio is #10 in the United States in population, but no hub operation there.
Any updates, please feel free to correct!!
Pan Am:The World's Most Experienced Airline - P(oor) S(ailor's) A(irline): San Diego's Hometown Airline-Catch Our Smile!
PanAm330 From United States of America, joined Mar 2004, 2601 posts, RR: 10 Reply 3, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4959 times:
"STL is still a hub dude."
How quick I am to forget! Now I feel like an idiot, as I should. Maybe it's because AA is continuously dropping flights and/or switching mainline to Eagle. It still is one hell of a disappointment to see it as it is today, in comparison to when TWA was in it's glory days (so my father says, as do the pictures).
UA744KSFO From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 4, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4962 times:
How about SJC? I think AA has scaled down operations there to the point of it not being a hub, and it is the third largest city in CA (after LA and SD).
Stirling From Italy, joined Jun 2004, 3943 posts, RR: 27 Reply 5, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4952 times:
The largest city in N. America without a major airline hub operation would have to be San Antonio, TX. We don't talk about SAT much here in the Forum, I wonder why?
And then, other places coming to mind would be Kansas City, New Orleans, Norfolk, JacksonvilleFL, Nashville, Raliegh, Buffalo, and ColumbusOH.
LambertMan From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 2040 posts, RR: 38 Reply 6, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4903 times:
How quick I am to forget! Now I feel like an idiot, as I should. Maybe it's because AA is continuously dropping flights and/or switching mainline to Eagle. It still is one hell of a disappointment to see it as it is today, in comparison to when TWA was in it's glory days (so my father says, as do the pictures).
A. They haven't dropped any routes since last April, and that was to an overcrowded, low-yield PHX market.
B. They haven't downgraded one route from American to Eagle service
C. We don't even have Eagle with the exception on 5 daily RDU ERD's
D. They have been doing more adding than subtracting
E. Most people point to it as one of the possible benefactors if reductions at ORD are made necessary by the FAA
MCI is the largest area I believe without a hub since AS considers PDX a hub...
KYIPpilot From United States of America, joined Oct 2003, 1383 posts, RR: 7 Reply 7, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4844 times:
3. Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL)/ Hollywood International
Isn't FLL a Spirit hub?
"It starts when you're always afraid; You step out of line, the man come and take you away" -Buffalo Springfield
AA7573E From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 475 posts, RR: 3 Reply 8, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4801 times:
@Lamberman
Nice post. Well said about the STL!
However, you are incorrect about MCI. Kansas City is the 38th largest city in the US, with 442,768 residents. There are MANY cities ahead of Kansas City that do not have hub operations. Top ten cities in terms of population in 2003 in the United states were:
Data in following format:
City / State / Population
New York New York 8,085,742
Los Angeles California 3,819,951
Chicago Illinois 2,869,121
Houston Texas 2,009,690
Philadelphia Pennsylvania 1,479,339
Phoenix Arizona 1,388,416
San Diego California 1,266,753
San Antonio Texas 1,214,725
Dallas Texas 1,208,318
Detroit Michigan 911,402
So the two largest cities without a hub are SAN and SAT. I suppose you could make the case for LAX not being a true hub for any airline, but I am sure that someone would argue that point.
LambertMan From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 2040 posts, RR: 38 Reply 9, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 4778 times:
AA757,
While Kansas city the city isn't the largest, the only thing that applies is metro area. If we went off of city size alone, places like SAT would have way more air service than St louis (330,000).
ConcordeBoy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 10, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 4771 times:
Yeah... you're going by city-proper size, instead of the more accurate metropolitian catchment areas.
Take MSY for example:
New Orleans-proper only has a population slightly over 460,000... but the airport serves as the only/primary gateway to the New Orleans metropolitan area as well as W.Mississippi and the entirety of SE Louisiana; a service area approaching 3 million people.
AA7573E From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 475 posts, RR: 3 Reply 11, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 4750 times:
@ Lambertman
If you want to measure it in terms of metros, Kansas City is number 29. For the record, the New Orleans MSA is number 45.
Other MSAs ahead of MCI that do not have a hub operation include:
Oakland
Tampa
Nassau-Sullok (New York)
San Diego
Orange County
iverside (California)
BostonY
You can make the case for Los Angeles as well
Note: This list is in reverse order of size. The actual list is here:
JoFMO From Germany, joined Jul 2004, 2211 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 4715 times:
@AA7573E
And there we are again at the point with city areas vs. standard urban areas.
It doesn't make sense to list the city population in this context, because airports doesn't serve cities, they serve urban areas. In this city context New York doesn't have a hub. LGA is only a focus city for US, JFK has a lot of airlines, some of them like AA and DL with a significant number of destinations, but a hub has none of them hub. The only New York hub has CO, but its in Newark NJ!
Dallas also downside have a hub. DFW is far away outside of Dallas.
I don't know where DTW, ORD and IAH are exactly located.
DIA From United States of America, joined Jan 2001, 3273 posts, RR: 30 Reply 14, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 4697 times:
I agree with ConcordeBoy here. Denver has over two million people in the metro area alone. . .
KYIPpilot is correct. One of Spirit's hubs is FLL.
In terms of the original post question: how about Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg. Does A^A still mini-hub at Nashville? How about Portland? San Diego? Colombus?
Ding! You are now free to keep supporting Frontier.
AA7573E From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 475 posts, RR: 3 Reply 15, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 4685 times:
@JoFMO
See the post above your last ranking MSAs. And for your knowledge, IAH, DTW and ORD are all within the city limits of their respective cities.
JoFMO From Germany, joined Jul 2004, 2211 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 15 hours ago) and read 4525 times:
Maybe Delta market JFK as a hub now. But marketing must not necessarily have a lot in common with facts. I just checked Deltas pdf timetable, and the number of destinations and the frequencies are not what I expect from a hub. Its their European gateway with some feeders.
For a hub I would expect frequent flights a least from the nearby communities in the same state.
But Delta neither serves Buffalo nor Rochester, Syracuse or Albany. Only B6 serves some of them frequently...
Sorry for Delta, but marketing JFK as a hub misleading.
Keep on calling it a focus city or better an gateway and we could agree!
Moman From United States of America, joined Aug 2004, 1048 posts, RR: 4 Reply 19, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 4505 times:
Thank goodness TPA is not a hub, this airport is busy enough as is. Seems to me that the layout of the airport is not conductive to hub operations anyway. I do think WN has some connecting flights here.
Saxman66 From United States of America, joined Sep 2000, 518 posts, RR: 0 Reply 20, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 4469 times:
Seems like everyone has already mentioned San Antonio. Not surprising seeing how 2 other of America's top ten cities are within 300 miles...Houston and DFW. But you should also consider metropolitan area. DFW is 5.6 million. Houston is around 4 to 5 million, and SA is I would guess 3 to 4 million. And Austin is not far up the road. But I would like to see an airline make SAT and/or Austin a focus city or small hub. The populations are definetly. Its just that you have to travel through IAH or DFW to connect anywhere in Texas from SAT or AUS. For example....SAT to San Angelo or Texarkana....quite a long way to drive...but still have to connect if you so choose to fly.
Leneld From United States of America, joined Jul 2003, 606 posts, RR: 1 Reply 21, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 4454 times:
PDX is still a hub for Alaska Airlines..Thier operation here are not as large as they were in the past though....
ZID From United States of America, joined Jan 2002, 294 posts, RR: 4 Reply 22, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 4434 times:
Okay Lambertman, PanAm330 made a slight error in saying that AA switched many flights from mainline to Eagle. But I think everyone understood what he was saying. Many cities were reduced from mainline to commuter flights to STL, which in this case wasn't Eagle but rather Chautauqua and Trans-States.
Unfortunately here in Indianapolis we got stuck with Trans-States instead of Chautauqua. So we went from MD-80's cruising along comfortably and quickly at 28,000 feet, to ATR-72's bumping along slowly at 16,000 feet. At least with Chautauqua we'd still be in fast jets at 28,000 feet, they'd just be smaller.
So STL is still an American hub in terms of having over 200 flights per day, but the capacity loss was monumental. Here in Indy alone we went from, what, 4 MD-80 flights per day? To 3 ATR's. That's a 75% drop in available seats.
BIGBlack From United States of America, joined Aug 2004, 600 posts, RR: 0 Reply 23, posted (8 years 9 months 2 weeks 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 4425 times:
The company I work for is actually building an even bigger operation for Delta in BOS. Due for completion in 2005, terminal A is being turned into an exclusive Delta terminal housing Delta, Delta Shuttle, Delta Express, Delta Connection, and Song.
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