Obviously big fortress hubs for the alliances would be as follows:
Oneworld has LHR, MIA, SCL etc...
Sky Team has ATL, PVG, SVO, etc...
Star has FRA, SFO, PEK, etc...

But what would a big out station for an alliance be? Let's put the criteria as at least 75% of an alliances members fly to this particular airport that is not a hub for any alliance member, but can still make meaningful connections.

One example I can think of is LHR for Star. A lot of Star airlines fly there with flights around the clock, so someone could fly in from IAH on UA and connect to LJU on Adria if they really wanted to.

In a world of people being pulled off of planes, bombings in Syria, and endless MoM/757neo/When will the A380 die? threads, this is my attempt to make a.net actually about aviation

Without doing any research or giving it more than a passing thought, I wonder if HKG, BKK, or LAX would meet this criteria.

MIA and HNL should meet these requirements.

IPFreely wrote:

MIA and HNL should meet these requirements.

I'd call doubtful on those two if we're using 75% as a benchmark.

Star/JFK.

Missing the US member of the team and the rest fly there in large numbers

SFO for both OW and ST, not sure about 75 percent, but quite a few and even some connections via AA and DL to US domestic.

In the case of LHR, it used to be a Star Alliance hub until Lufthansa got fed up with British Midland's losses and sold it off, keeping some of the slots within the Lufthansa Group.
It also doesn't have flights all around the clock. There are very strict restrictions indeed on flying between 23:00 and 05:00, and the terminals actually close for part of the night.

TWA772LR wrote:

Obviously big fortress hubs for the alliances would be as follows:
Oneworld has LHR, MIA, SCL etc...
Sky Team has ATL, PVG, SVO, etc...
Star has FRA, SFO, PEK, etc...

Let's start by agreeing which Alliance hubs are the 'Obvious Fortress Hubs', for your examples raised some eyebrows.

One World - LHR, HKG, HND, DFW, ORD seem more Fortressy than MIA (5th hub for AA) and SCL. (LHR has the most One World carriers)
SkyTeam - ATL, PVG, CDG, AMS, JFK seem a lot more Fortressy than SVO. (AMS has the most Skyteam carriers)
STAR - PEK, ORD, FRA, IST SIN, could be considered the top five STAR fortresses. (FRA has the most STAR carriers)

Naturally MIA, SCL, SVO and SFO are alliance hubs, but significantly smaller than the true fortress hubs.

SeaDoo wrote:

Without doing any research or giving it more than a passing thought, I wonder if HKG, BKK, or LAX would meet this criteria.

HKG should fit the criteria, but BKK is hub for TG and LAX for UA.

Maybe CDG or MAD also fits?

CDG for Star Alliance. 21 out of 27 member airlines fly there, making it 78% of the airlines. Exceptions are Avianca, Air New Zealand, Copa, Shenzen, SAA and TAP.

Wingtips56 wrote:

I'm not sure the presence of 75% of the member carriers is the right metric. For example, FRA has 12 of 14 oneworld carriers, but it's not really regarded as a major oneworld hub based on volume.

I count three missing airlines: Qantas, Malaysia and Sri Lankan. It would still meet the 75% benchmark...

Thats a wild guess but maybe PEK to OW?

TWA772LR wrote:

One example I can think of is LHR for Star. A lot of Star airlines fly there with flights around the clock, so someone could fly in from IAH on UA and connect to LJU on Adria if they really wanted to.

Adria does not fly to LHR

TWA772LR wrote:

Obviously big fortress hubs for the alliances would be as follows:
Oneworld has LHR, MIA, SCL etc...
Sky Team has ATL, PVG, SVO, etc...
Star has FRA, SFO, PEK, etc...

But what would a big out station for an alliance be? Let's put the criteria as at least 75% of an alliances members fly to this particular airport that is not a hub for any alliance member, but can still make meaningful connections.

One World has GRU as a big fortress hub, that is mutch bigger than SCL.

GRU can be considered a big out station for Star Alliance, as TAP, United, Copa, Avianca, Lufthansa, Swiss, South African, Ethiopian Airlines, Air China, Air Canada and Turkish all of them flies to GRU, but GRU is not a HUB for any Star Alliance member (yes it is Avianca Brasil hub, but it`s not a hub at all, Avianca Brasil is quite small and is in Star Alliance just because of Avianca Colombia. They are growing very fast and soon GRU will be a true Star Alliance hub with them, but that`s not the situation now). It also applies for Sky Team.

nadavatar64 wrote:

Thats a wild guess but maybe PEK to OW?

Nope, missing Air Berlin, Iberia, LATAM and Royal Jordanian... 9/14 (=64%) of OW airlines fly to PEK.

From what I am reading here, I think the answer is: Any of the top global (Alpha) cities (LON, PAR, FRA, DBX, PEK, SIN, HKG, TYO, YYZ, GRU, LAX, NYC, CHI) are going to be significant alliance-wide operations. You can then do the next round of major economic cities (BRU, MAD, BER, ROM, IST, JNB, BOM, BKK, SFO, HOU, WAS, BOS) and find significant alliance coverage.

Its an interesting discussion and shows how alliances are super helpful for frequent flyers. For example, if you like in Toronto and travel internationally, you can really make OneWorld or SkyTeam your carriers of choice and have a ton of options without having to ever set foot on an AC jet.

But in reality with the exception of Star, there really isn't a lot of attempting to co-locate and co-operate to show their strength. There are attempts here and there but its not consistent across the network-- and its not consistent in places where it would make the most sense. JFK is a great example: DL and AA both have "hubs" (DL much more than AA) but neither is a fortress operation. Yet there is nearly no attempts at co-locatiing. Sure there are some OW airlines in T8 (which has available room and tons of land to build more gates/head house) but BA/Cathy and others are in T7 and JAL still owns part of T1. A seamless experience with a set of great lounges all in T8 would make sense. SkyTeam is spread out over T1 and T4 (and I think Aerolineas is still in T7 but not sure if they even fly to JFK anymore) without any attempt to create a way to transit between them without leaving security--and the lounge situation is a mess. Delta seems to be a fair-weather alliance member anyways and I don't think they really have any interest in working with the "lesser friends." In a perfect world it would make sense to move everyone to T4 and make T1 the open, unaligned international terminal. Finally Star--the alliance that probably works harder than anyone else to cooperate is all over the place at JFK. Even the LH group, which owns 25% of T1, doesn't put its owned-and-operated airlines together. Swiss is still in T4, which is nutty. Again, in a perfect world, either T1 or T7 would be the star terminal with the other being the "unaligned" building.

I think that this rule of 75% of members is not valid. Let`s see Star Alliance for exemple, with so many "small" european airlines as members, that does not have a bigger presence (or even any presence) in long haul flying (Adria, Aegan, Brussels, Croatia, Lot) it`s difficult to see a place outside Europe to be categorized as a big outstation for the alliance. OneWorld and Skyteam are more equal about the size and the type of operation of its members.

ThalesCoelho wrote:

so many "small" european airlines as members, that does not have a bigger presence (or even any presence) in long haul flying (Adria, Aegan, Brussels, Croatia, Lot)

Puting LO and SN in the same basket as Adria, Croatia or Aegan doesn't seem fair to me.
LO longhaul: JFK (and soon EWR), ORD, YYZ, LAX, PEK, NRT, ICN.

konkret wrote:

ThalesCoelho wrote:

so many "small" european airlines as members, that does not have a bigger presence (or even any presence) in long haul flying (Adria, Aegan, Brussels, Croatia, Lot)

Puting LO and SN in the same basket as Adria, Croatia or Aegan doesn't seem fair to me.
LO longhaul: JFK (and soon EWR), ORD, YYZ, LAX, PEK, NRT, ICN.

Puting LO and SN in the same basket as Lufthansa, Swiss, SAS, TAP is not fair too. What I mean is that, despite them having some interesting long haul operation, they are much smaller than its partners, and as they have a more regional focused presence in Star Alliance, this makes some imabalance on how one large global hub that it`s not on the sight of them can be a "large out station" for Star.

At the end, what I mean is that Star Alliance has many members across Europe, with some of them being comparatively small, what makes harder for other continent great hubs to be classified as a "large out station" for this alliance.

Skyteam and OneWorld have a more equal member list.

Skyteam's CSA or TAROM aren't particularly big at longhaul too.