Atlanta, with hundreds of thousands of possible connections, tops the list of megahubs. (Image: Chris McGinnis)
What’s a megahub? It’s an airport that has a lot more options for flight connections than just a run-of-the-mill hub. That’s important when you’ve missed your scheduled connecting flight and need another one soon, or when your itinerary suddenly changes mid-trip.
If these things matter to you, you’re lucky you live in the U.S., which boasts more megahubs than any other country, according to a new study by air travel data giant OAG — including the most mega- of all megahubs, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson. One a single day, the report said, as many as 570,000 connections were possible at ATL.
OAG crunched the numbers (i.e., “the total number of all possible connections between inbound and outbound flights within an eight-hour window”) to determine the world’s 50 biggest megahubs. Of those 50, 22 are in the U.S. — including eight of the top 10. Not a huge surprise considering it has the largest domestic aviation market, but still….
“Contributing to the growth of megahubs are low-cost carriers and the rise in self-connecting passengers,” OAG noted. “While connections have traditionally been made between airlines through code sharing agreements, today, passengers are increasingly self-connecting between low-cost carriers. In fact, many airports, such as Chicago Midway (MDW), Baltimore Washington International (BWI) and Las Vegas McCarran International (LAS), are beginning to facilitate connections between low-cost flights for the traveler.”
The report also observed that partly as a result of industry consolidation, U.S. megahubs are tending to be dominated by a single carrier — e.g., Delta at Atlanta (80 percent of all flights), American at Dallas/Ft. Worth (81 percent), United at Houston Intercontinental (76 percent) and American/US Airways at Charlotte (88 percent). The U.S. has six low-cost carrier megahubs, the report said, and all of them are dominated by Southwest.
You can download a copy of the full report here.
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I seem to remember many years ago that travel agents would look for flights and offer you connections through two neighboring airports (e.g., Phoenix to Oakland, then San Francisco to Tokyo or whatever). It was up to you to fetch your baggage and fight your way through traffic to make your connection. They even had minimum recommended connecting times, which were usually four hours or so. I cannot imagine doing that today, although I have friends who have connected across EWR-JFK or IAD-DCA.
I’ve also noticed that SAS is automatically presenting flight options with very long layovers in their hubs. If you go to ITA Matrix and search for flights from SFO to CDG, the cheapest business-class fares over Thanksgiving require an overnight layover in Copenhagen on the way home. I suppose this would appeal to leisure travelers who might want to tack on an extra day in Denmark, but a 19-hour layover in a medium-size airport and a total trip duration of 32 hours would not appeal to me. I wonder if you can pick up your checked baggage during long connections and leave the airport to stay the night in a hotel.
What a dumb report by OAG. Since when does the term “hub” mean an airport with many flights from different airlines that have no partnership with each other? That’s not what a hub is.