airfrnt From United States of America, joined Jul 2004, 2775 posts, RR: 43 Reply 2, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 6565 times:
MSP has to be in there somewhere. Just paid a fortune for a DEN to MSP flight. Bear in mind that DEN is one of the least profitable hubs in the nation.
Lufthansa From Christmas Island, joined May 1999, 3074 posts, RR: 10 Reply 3, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 6555 times:
Well I'd stick DXB at the top of the list, but if you want to look at other REALLY big hubs in terms of total movements, and couple that with which airlines made the most profit, then
you have to include PEK and PVG.
I wouldn't stick any european hub there because european carriers have sustained heavy losses over the last few years, and even US carriers have largely outperformed them. Traditionally you probably could point to LHR, but things haven't been smooth sailing in europe recently.
If you measured it a completely different way, rather than total $$$ profit over all, you might find some of the smaller carriers like Finnair come out better than expected.
I'd say we should start with somebody getting the top 10 IATA carriers in terms of overall profit, and then looking at the hubs relative to each airlines profit. Some carriers, like Emirates, it will be very straight forward. But Lufthansa for example will be harder as FRA and MUC operations are split. And LAN... I expect they are doing well but with all the different LAN's around the place that one is going to be hard to pick which is its most profitable..it might even be GRU (through TAM!) ..
PSU.DTW.SCE From United States of America, joined Jan 2002, 6867 posts, RR: 29 Reply 5, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 6457 times:
Depends if you are are talking about margin or if on an absolete basis.
My example is that in the case of DL, historically MSP has been their highest margin hub, however ATL generates the most profit on an absolete basis.
martinrpo1 From United States of America, joined Dec 2012, 63 posts, RR: 0 Reply 10, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 5237 times:
PTY is a crucial connecting hub for Latin America, it is known as the HUb of the Americas. CM has amazing operations there. I would dare to say that more than 70% of the traffic is connecting. There are 6 different transit periods per day. All the planes arrive at a certain hour and all depart again an hour later. Transit period in average is 1 hour.
usdcaguy From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 754 posts, RR: 2 Reply 11, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 5002 times:
The problem is, you can't talk about "Hub" profitability; you can only talk about carrier profitability at a given hub. In that case, I believe EK at DXB, LH at FRA, DL at ATL, KL at AMS (not including AF loss!), MU at PVG, NH at NRT and TK at IST would be some of the top ones. However, once AA gets its act together, I would fully expect DFW to join this list. Also, it's very hard to talk about Hub profitability without dissecting it according to traffic type (O&D, Connecting, Domestic, International). I don't think it's really fair to compare EK profitability at DXB with DL profitability at ATL. Two totally different worlds in my view.
2travel2know2 From Panama, joined Apr 2010, 1999 posts, RR: 1 Reply 13, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 2900 times:
Not to be bias about PTY writing from Panama, but PTY seems very underrated as a profitable airline hub operation.
It's because CM isn't an airline with deep pockets flying B787/A380 and global operations?
I'd also consider ADD as a very profitable hub too.
Many of the airports which have been mentioned on this topic look more like "O/D airports with sizeable connecting traffic" than hubs.
Wow, that surprises me, given all of the operational restrictions at that airport. But it is true that fliers to that destination much prefer DCA to IAD. (Back when I was travelling to the Maryland side of the Beltway a lot, my secret weapon was BWI.)
EricR From United States of America, joined Jul 2010, 1450 posts, RR: 1 Reply 16, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 2272 times:
Maybe the best approach is to identifty those airlines which are the most profitable and then create a list. For example, while MIA may be a very good hub, AA's high costs may cause MIA to drop out of the top 10 list of the most profitable.
Based on DL's profits, I would expect at least one DL hub to be in the top 10. Also, I would expect either IAH or IAD to rank high. IAH had the 3rd highest average domestic (U.S.) airfare in Q3 of 2012. IAD had the 4th highest average domestic (U.S.) airfare in Q3.
Internationally, the first two hubs that come to mind are ZRH and DXB.
MaverickM11 From United States of America, joined Apr 2000, 15722 posts, RR: 47 Reply 17, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 2140 times:
Quoting 2travel2know2 (Reply 13): Not to be bias about PTY writing from Panama, but PTY seems very underrated as a profitable airline hub operation
CM has a consistently higher profit margin than any of the other carriers mentioned so far, and it's almost 100% focused on PTY. I'd bet PTY is the highest margin hub in the world by far.
bobloblaw From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 1360 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 19 hours ago) and read 1574 times:
Quoting Lufthansa (Reply 3): Well I'd stick DXB at the top of the list,
Is EK really that profitable, or do they get Govt help?
bobloblaw From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 1360 posts, RR: 0 Reply 20, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 18 hours ago) and read 1012 times:
HOONS90 From Canada, joined Aug 2001, 2667 posts, RR: 54 Reply 22, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 7 hours ago) and read 773 times:
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Quoting timpdx (Reply 21): I find CM fares consistently pretty high (like LAN), as compared with TA at SAL or connecting through MEX or MIA for that matter.
From YYZ, CM is always cheapest to GRU and GIG.
Plus there's a ton of other options to Brazil such as CNF, POA, REC, BSB and MAO. Hopefully CWB and SSA soon!
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CM has a consistently higher profit margin than any of the other carriers mentioned so far, and it's almost 100% focused on PTY. I'd bet PTY is the highest margin hub in the world by far.
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