Berlin's airports had around 33 mio. passengers last year, out of which hardly any were transfer passengers (around 2 mio. only). This is very unusual for an airport system this size to have almost exclusively O&D passengers, actually Berlin has a lot more O&D then Frankfurt, Munich or other hubs. Are there other big airports in the world that have almost no transfer passengers (La Guardia maybe)?

LAX

SOF

CUN with 23.6 million pax on 2018. Everybody comes to the beach.

32andBelow wrote:

LAX

LAX has tons of connecting traffic - AA and UA being the main sources. DL has some as well.

I'd vote for LAS as being a huge O/D city save for any connections on WN. 48,000,000 total passengers in 2017.

LPA? BCN? FCO? VCE? i guess where the tourists arrive mostly

Palma de Mallorca.

Antalya.

Tel Aviv.

Jeddah and Riyadh. Even if SV sells connections those are quite a small %. With the new JED airport the share of connections should increase.

I would be shocked if PMI wasn't the answer for this. 28 million annual pax and after the AB "hub" was closed in... 2015? it's pretty much all been O&D

Over in East Asia, CJU (Jeju) at 29.7M pax, and I highly doubt there are that many transfer pax at CJU (Mostly O&D to/from Seoul). Traffic pattern wise I would say it's very similar to PMI.

HKT (Phuket) is somewhat busy also at ~16M pax. Again, one of those places where everyone is going to the beach.

BUD (13 mio pax in 2017, 15 mio expected in 2018).

TLV handles about 22 million pax a year with less than 10,000 connecting pax.

zakuivcustom wrote:

Over in East Asia, CJU (Jeju) at 29.7M pax, and I highly doubt there are that many transfer pax at CJU (Mostly O&D to/from Seoul). Traffic pattern wise I would say it's very similar to PMI.

That is the case today but a few years ago when Air Berlin was the largest carrier at PMI, they had a successful hub mostly between mainland Spain and Germany (and some other Euro destinations in Italy, Switzerland, etc).

The only connections I can realistically think of today at PMI are connecting between Ibiza and Minorca (even if I think there are some non-stop seasonal flights IBZ-MAH) and some connections from outside the islands to IBZ or MAH via PMI, specially with Air Europa.

lightmac wrote:

Berlin's airports had around 33 mio. passengers last year, out of which hardly any were transfer passengers (around 2 mio. only). This is very unusual for an airport system this size to have almost exclusively O&D passengers, actually Berlin has a lot more O&D then Frankfurt, Munich or other hubs. Are there other big airports in the world that have almost no transfer passengers (La Guardia maybe)?

There might be only a few people connecting in Berlin but the vast majority of pax of network airlines are connecting elsewhere to get to/ leaving from Berlin. It’s a big city but it’s no hub by any means. So I am not really sure about your statements.

BOS has typically not been a huge transfer airport. Historically US Air and AA had some, because they served so many smaller northeast destinations. Now, B6 and DL also flow some, both through their own flights and to code share / alliance partners. But relative to other larger airports, there's more O&D than connections.

For all reasons that have been discussed over time - geography, proximity to NYC etc...

The other two sizeable airports in Germany doing mainly O&D are HAM, 17.6 million pax, and STR, 11 million pax..

HAM at 17 mn with to my knowledge not a single logical/intentional connection for any airline (EW serves OSL only ex-HAM and might sell some other connections but it's clearly O&D focussed)

lightmac wrote:

Berlin's airports had around 33 mio. passengers last year, out of which hardly any were transfer passengers (around 2 mio. only). This is very unusual for an airport system this size to have almost exclusively O&D passengers, actually Berlin has a lot more O&D then Frankfurt, Munich or other hubs. Are there other big airports in the world that have almost no transfer passengers (La Guardia maybe)?

Given that there is an extensive rail network in Europe in general there may be more plane to train connections than there are plane to plane transfers.

Although don't have any hard numbers, I would venture to guess that very few of the 44.6 million people that go trough MCO yearly are transfer passengers.

AGP has got to be up there.

But also LGW, i mean BA channels a few connections as well as Norwegian but not many.

MAN with 27,826,054 passengers in 2017. very few connections ( except some flybe connections with a couple long haul airlines)

GMP, CTS, DMK, HNL?
I think SHA don't have much connecting traffic either?

BOS
Recently the amount of people transferring through BOS has increased a bit, but it still has mostly O/D passengers.

ARN - Pretty much the end of the line, literally and figuratively.

sgbroimp wrote:

ARN - Pretty much the end of the line, literally and figuratively.

I don't have any solid numbers, but I'm pretty sure ARN has a decent amount of domestic to international transfers, and vice versa.

32andBelow wrote:

LAX

I depends on how the OP wanted to ask the question.

Big airports (how big is big?) with few transfer passengers? Or,

The airport with the biggest O&D passenger count, for which LAX may be the answer. HND, PEK...

c933103 wrote:

GMP, CTS, DMK, HNL?
I think SHA don't have much connecting traffic either?

SHA probably has some connecting traffic - its location is great for many Southern/SE China to Northern China flights.

HNL has the inter-island flight connections. Just for example, the easiest way to get from Japan to Maui would be a transfer at HNL, since OGG doesn't have any intercontinental flights.

BritTraveller wrote:

AGP has got to be up there.

But also LGW, i mean BA channels a few connections as well as Norwegian but not many.

I see a fair number of travellers on any given day at Gatwick transferring between flights using Norwegian and also on Virgin Atlantic (mostly cruise ship workers using the latter airline, coming in from the Caribbean going home to various countries in the Far East via Dubai with a Emirates) etc. Don't forget people also use the Gatwick connect service too as well etc.

Those numbers could potentially increase too with Qatar Airways due to commence ops from LGW and at now at a guess?

Cheers

Ben

sgbroimp wrote:

ARN - Pretty much the end of the line, literally and figuratively.

ARN is a hub for both Norwegian and SAS.

It is very common to see Norwegian connections from Europe to the US very reasonably priced via ARN/OSL/CPH.

Not to mention SAS particularly to Asia.

fpetrutiu wrote:

Although don't have any hard numbers, I would venture to guess that very few of the 44.6 million people that go trough MCO yearly are transfer passengers.

Both DL and B6 connect plenty of pax through MCO, especially to their international services.

Seems like a general theme of larger secondary cities and heavy tourist cities

LAX772LR wrote:

fpetrutiu wrote:

Although don't have any hard numbers, I would venture to guess that very few of the 44.6 million people that go trough MCO yearly are transfer passengers.

Both DL and B6 connect plenty of pax through MCO, especially to their international services.

WN as well. I've seen a bunch of itineraries pop up that connect through MCO.

SCQ83 wrote:

sgbroimp wrote:

ARN - Pretty much the end of the line, literally and figuratively.

ARN is a hub for both Norwegian and SAS.

It is very common to see Norwegian connections from Europe to the US very reasonably priced via ARN/OSL/CPH.

Not to mention SAS particularly to Asia.

SK's North American routes from ARN see plenty of transfer passengers. People flying routes like ORD-ARN-WAW and LAX-ARN-SVO etc

SAN

In the US? I imagine they are SAN and TPA - the smallest of the "large hub" airports and those in far corners of the country, with strong O&D.

In Levant/Asia Minor areas, TLV, AYT and SSH seem good candidates.

Wouldn't MEL and to a lesser extent SYD be up there? I don't have any statistics to hand but Australia's domestic services are typically more point-to-point than connecting, and the only significant flow of international transfer pax would be from NZ or Pacific islands, you'd think.

What about LED? Last year it had 16 million passengers and I can't imagine many connected there.

sgbroimp wrote:

ARN - Pretty much the end of the line, literally and figuratively.

A lot of flights from the US to Europe have cheap routes on SAS through ARN.

washingtonflyer wrote:

I'd vote for LAS as being a huge O/D city save for any connections on WN. 48,000,000 total passengers in 2017.

Not that its a significant number, but I am quite surprised how many WestJet passengers connect to onward flights going through LAS.

32andBelow wrote:

LAX

Hardly. Yes LAX is far more OD when compared to flow, but there are massive connecting volumes that come from TPAC points like SYD, AKL, MNL, etc. and go onward throughout North America. LAX is the largest OD airport in North America, but it is very much not 'without' transfer passengers, and it's for that reason that you're seeing the large infrastructure investments from UA, AA, and DL almost simultaneously.

Using this: (Old numbers, I know...)
viewtopic.php?t=558079

Then using total boarding number in 2012 as my approximation (I just multiply it by two, even though "Total Pax" is usually more than twice the # of boarding pax). Also keep in mind the O&D is domestic only (I don't think the international flight data is publicly available IIRC).

Seems like LGA has ~83% O&D rate. MCO is around 78% and LAS is ~72%. BOS is ~74%, and DCA is ~78%.

Smaller airports with fairly high O&D rates are SAN, TPA, STL, and PDX.

LAX is something like 50% O&D rate, even though it has the most O&D pax in absolute number. LAX TPAC connection are not to be underestimated, though.

(There should be a way to calculate O&D percentage for US Airport using DOT T100 numbers. I'm not familiar enough in where to look, though).

LAS, MCO, LGA all seem like good bets. All very high O&D and low connecting

LGAviation wrote:

HAM at 17 mn with to my knowledge not a single logical/intentional connection for any airline (EW serves OSL only ex-HAM and might sell some other connections but it's clearly O&D focussed)

I've heard of some eurowings/Germanwings connections in HAM, otherwise this is my answer as well.

PUJ, CUN.

I would hedge a bet that fewer than 3% of CUNs 20+ million traffic is connecting.

How many connections does STN get? I believe it's completely not set up for connections, but I imagine it must get some people connecting on low costs?

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

LAS, MCO, LGA all seem like good bets. All very high O&D and low connecting

Possibly FLL too with 32 million passengers but not sure how many transfer passengers B6, WN and NK handle.

winginit wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

LAX

Hardly. Yes LAX is far more OD when compared to flow, but there are massive connecting volumes that come from TPAC points like SYD, AKL, MNL, etc. and go onward throughout North America. LAX is the largest OD airport in North America, but it is very much not 'without' transfer passengers, and it's for that reason that you're seeing the large infrastructure investments from UA, AA, and DL almost simultaneously.

I have transferred several times at LAX flying on AA between DFW and SFO/OGG.

Barcelona is probably i raw numbers the first or second biggest O&D airport in Europe, it has a lot of transfer passengers but limited domestic traffic and the inconvinient location for intra european flights means most tranfers are to and from intercontinental flights, which has increased in the last few years but is still limited to some 15-20 flights or so a day.

Blerg wrote:

What about LED? Last year it had 16 million passengers and I can't imagine many connected there.

At least from a German point-of-view, EU-Russia connections exist via LED on Rossiya/SU although admittedly only to a very small extent.

345tas wrote:

Wouldn't MEL and to a lesser extent SYD be up there? I don't have any statistics to hand but Australia's domestic services are typically more point-to-point than connecting, and the only significant flow of international transfer pax would be from NZ or Pacific islands, you'd think.

You're right when it comes to domestic services. Capital-to-Capital services are usually non-stop and non-capital domestic service that requires connections is small in volume. And although small as well there's also the CANADA/US/ASIA-SYD/MEL-BNE/ADL/CNS/DRW/PER/AKL/CHC/OOL/AYQ/ASP traffic flows

First one I thought of was CTS Sapporo. They see over 20 million pax, with many international destinations, and there is very little reason to connect there.