 | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(December 2010) |
Point-to-point transit is a transportation system in which a plane, bus, or train travels directly to a destination, rather than going through a central hub. This differs from the spoke-hub distribution paradigm in which the transportation goes to a central location where passengers change to another train, bus, or plane to reach their destination.
The point-to-point model is used widely by low-cost carriers, including Allegiant Air and Southwest Airlines in the U.S., and European carriers such as Ryanair, easyJet and Wizzair, along with some low-cost carriers in Asia like AirAsia, Lion Air and VietJet Air, for example. [1] Many such airlines sell each flight leg independently and have no concept of round-trip ticketing or connecting flights so baggage must be collected and rechecked even to transfer between flights booked at the same time on the same airline. Although there are many point-to-point airlines, most have at least a "homebase" airport where most flights originate or depart. The United States airport system was point-to-point, controlled by CAB, until deregulation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, the hub concept became prevalent. With the advent of low-cost carriers, point-to-point air transport increased. Some full-service network carriers operate the point-to-point model alongside the hub-and-spoke system for certain high-density routes between focus cities. In Europe, for example, most traditional full-service airlines operate seasonal point-to-point service outside their hubs to serve Mediterranean and Alpine holiday resorts.
The Airline Deregulation Act is a 1978 United States federal law that deregulated the airline industry in the United States, removing federal control over such areas as fares, routes, and market entry of new airlines. The act gradually phased out and disbanded the Civil Aeronautics Board, but the regulatory powers of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were not diminished over all aspects of aviation safety.
Albany International Airport is six miles (9.7 km) northwest of Albany, in Albany County, New York, United States. It is owned by the Albany County Airport Authority. ALB covers 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land.
Oakland International Airport is an international airport in Oakland, California, United States. The airport is located 10 miles (16 km) south of Downtown Oakland, and serves the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned by the Port of Oakland and has domestic passenger flights to cities throughout the United States and international flights to Mexico, Central America and the Azores, in addition to cargo flights to China and Japan. The airport covers 2,600 acres (1,100 ha) of land. The airport is an operating base for Southwest Airlines, which operates point-to-point routes with bases instead of a traditional network with hubs.
Memphis International Airport is a civil-military airport located seven miles (11 km) southeast of Downtown Memphis in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States. It is the primary international airport serving Memphis. It covers 3,900 acres (1,600 ha) and has four runways.
Norfolk International Airport is seven miles (11 km) northeast of downtown Norfolk, an independent city in Virginia, United States. It is owned and operated by the Norfolk Airport Authority: a bureau under the municipal government. The airport serves the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of southeast Virginia as well as northeast North Carolina. Despite its name, the airport does not have any international destinations nonstop.
Raleigh–Durham International Airport, locally known by its IATA code RDU, is an international airport that serves Raleigh, Durham, and the surrounding Research Triangle region of North Carolina as its main airport. It is located in unincorporated Wake County, but is surrounded by the city of Raleigh to the north and east, and the towns of Cary and Morrisville to the south. The airport covers 4,584 acres (18.55 km2) and has three runways.
El Paso International Airport is an international airport located four miles (6 km) northeast of downtown El Paso, in El Paso County, Texas, United States. It is the busiest commercial airport in West Texas, and also serves Southern New Mexico and Northern Mexico. It handled 3,667,439 passengers in 2022, with 83,438 cargo operations.
Albuquerque International Sunport, locally known as the Sunport, is the primary international airport serving the U.S. state of New Mexico, particularly the Albuquerque metropolitan area and the larger Albuquerque–Santa Fe–Las Vegas combined statistical area. It handles around 5.4 million passengers annually and over 400 flights daily. ABQ is located in Bernalillo County, between the Rio Grande and the Sandia Mountains, east of Old Town and Barelas, 3 miles (5 km) southeast of downtown, south of the University of New Mexico and directly to the west of Sandia National Laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base.
Fort Wayne International Airport lies eight miles southwest of Fort Wayne, in Allen County, Indiana, United States. It is owned by the Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority.
The spoke–hub distribution paradigm is a form of transport topology optimization in which traffic planners organize routes as a series of "spokes" that connect outlying points to a central "hub". Simple forms of this distribution/connection model contrast with point-to-point transit systems, in which each point has a direct route to every other point, and which modeled the principal method of transporting passengers and freight until the 1970s. Delta Air Lines pioneered the spoke–hub distribution model in 1955, and the concept revolutionized the transportation logistics industry after Federal Express demonstrated its value in the early 1970s. In the late 1970s the telecommunications and information technology sector subsequently adopted this distribution topology, dubbing it the star network network topology.
Airline deregulation is the process of removing government-imposed entry and price restrictions on airlines affecting, in particular, the carriers permitted to serve specific routes. In the United States, the term usually applies to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. A new form of regulation has been developed to some extent to deal with problems such as the allocation of the limited number of slots available at airports.
A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline (LCC), also called no-frills, budget or discount carrier or airline, is an airline that is operated with an emphasis on minimizing operating costs and without some of the traditional services and amenities of traditional airlines, resulting in lower fares and fewer comforts. To make up for revenue lost in decreased ticket prices, the airline may charge extra fees such as for carry-on baggage. As of April 2020, the world's largest low-cost carrier is Southwest Airlines, which operates primarily in the United States, as well as in some surrounding areas.
Air travel is a form of travel in vehicles such as airplanes, jet aircraft, helicopters, hot air balloons, blimps, gliders, hang gliders, parachutes, or anything else that can sustain flight. Use of air travel began vastly increasing in the 1930s: the number of Americans flying went from about 6,000 in 1930 to 450,000 by 1934 and to 1.2 million by 1938. It has continued to greatly increase in recent decades, doubling worldwide between the mid-1980s and the year 2000. Modern air travel is much safer than road travel.
Allegiant Air is an ultra low-cost U.S. carrier that operates scheduled and charter flights. It is a major air carrier, the fourteenth-largest commercial airline in North America.
Bishop International Airport is a commercial and general aviation airport located in Flint, Michigan, United States. It is named after banker and General Motors board member Arthur Giles Bishop, who donated 220 acres of his farmland for the airport in 1928. It is located in southwestern Flint, and is surrounded by Flint Township to the north, east and west; and Mundy Township to the south.
An airline hub or hub airport is an airport used by one or more airlines to concentrate passenger traffic and flight operations. Hubs serve as transfer points to help get passengers to their final destination. It is part of the hub-and-spoke system. An airline may operate flights from several non-hub (spoke) cities to the hub airport, and passengers traveling between spoke cities connect through the hub. This paradigm creates economies of scale that allow an airline to serve city-pairs that could otherwise not be economically served on a non-stop basis. This system contrasts with the point-to-point model, in which there are no hubs and nonstop flights are instead offered between spoke cities. Hub airports also serve origin and destination (O&D) traffic.
Fayetteville Regional Airport, also known as Grannis Field, is a public use airport in Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States. It is owned by the city of Fayetteville and located three nautical miles (6 km) south of its central business district.
A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include railway stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stops, airports and ferry slips. Freight hubs include classification yards, airports, seaports and truck terminals, or combinations of these. For private transport by car, the parking lot functions as a unimodal hub.
The United States has an extensive air transportation network. In 2013, there were 86 airports in the U.S. that annually handled over 1,000,000 passengers each. The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based; American Airlines is number one after its 2013 acquisition by US Airways. Of the world's 50 busiest passenger airports, 16 are in the United States, including the top five and the busiest, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In terms of cargo, in 2015, eight of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's second-busiest, Memphis International Airport, just behind Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong. Private aircraft are also used for medical emergencies, government agencies, large businesses, and individuals.
In commercial aviation, an outstation refers to an airport that is served by an air carrier but is not a hub, a focus city, nor a crew or maintenance base in that operator's network. Outstations often, but not necessarily, take the form of regional airports located in exurban or rural communities which handle lower passenger volumes and less-frequent service than hubs. For these reasons, outstations may lack passenger amenities and services which comprise an airline's typical customer experience standards. When an outstation is served by a hub-and-spoke style airline, it is common for its flights to depart early in the morning and arrive late at night due to scheduling patterns directing aircraft to remain-over-night (RON) for maximum fleet utilization.