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Airline Hub Guide: Which U.S. Cities Are Major Hubs

The favoured model of the American airline industry since its deregulation in 1978, airport hubs have formed the backbone of the country’s present-day aviation network and marketplace. Nowadays these hub-and-spoke systems have become ubiquitous in the U.S. travel sphere, replacing most previous point-to-point models offered by airlines.
By providing greater efficiency and profitability, the hub system seems here to stay, so lets took a look at how this transportation model can benefit both the airline and the passengers they carry.
Why Hubs Matter for Passengers
In a perfect world, every flight would be nonstop, and you'd be jetting off to your destination without any extended connection times or roundabout routings. But in that perfect world, your airfare would likely cost triple.
So why do hubs matter for passengers? The almighty dollar. If airlines can reduce costs by running an efficient hub-and-spoke system, they can, in theory, pass along the savings to the customer. While airport connections aren’t always ideal, hubs allow for carriers to provide more extensive route networks, streamlined operations, and lower fares.
And those low fares come in several forms.
Some of the best-unadvertised savings in the entire aviation marketplace come in the form of hub attacks by competing airlines. These fare wars often instigated by rival carriers trying to undercut prices on select routes from a competitor hub airport, sometimes to the tune of hundreds of dollars.
As an example, Delta might try to drum up sales in a market such as Houston (IAH) that are traditionally dominated by United Airlines by listing fares to destinations in say, Europe or Hawaii, for half the going price. By instigating a fare war, Delta can cut into United’s hub profits and sway customers who are generally handcuffed to United’s monopolized airfares to try their product instead.
These so-called fare wars often escalate quickly with multiple airlines getting in on the action targeting rivals’ hometown hubs across the country. By knowing which hub is nearest to you and which airlines tend to undercut prices when a fare war kicks up might be key in grabbing a rock-bottom fare during one of these short-lived unadvertised sales and save big.
Why Hubs Matter for Airlines
Consolidated route networks play a big part in how airlines can shed overhead on their overall operational costs. Hubs allow airlines to funnel feeder flights with lower passenger volumes through strategically placed airports without having to allot larger aircraft on less popular city-to-city pairings. Thus, adjusting for the total number of travelers on routes and reducing empty seats – the bane of every carrier’s bottom line.
For example, instead of offering a nonstop point-to-point option between two smaller cities like Des Moines (DSM) and Dayton (DAY) that would more than likely fly half empty, these two markets connect through a midway hub like Detroit (DTW) or Chicago (ORD). This allows the airline to better utilize its aircraft and corral passengers between the two points at a profitable schedule while reducing its risk of low passenger loads.
Hubs also provide airlines with a centralized work base for employees, allow for more timely mechanical fixes, and provide additional options for aircraft swaps or adjustments, all of which significantly reduce operating costs compared to a point-to-point system.
A List of Airport Hubs Across America
The following is a list of major U.S.-based carriers and the location of their airport hubs cities.

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