AIRLINE HUB
An airline hub is an airport that an airline uses as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination.
It is part of a hub-and-spoke model, where travellers moving between airports not served by direct flights change planes en route to their destinations. Many airline hubs are also located at airports in the cities of their respective head offices.
Some airlines use only a single hub, while others use multiple hubs. Hubs are used for both passenger flights and cargo flights.
Many airlines also utilise focus cities, which function much the same as hubs, but with fewer flights. Airlines may also use secondary hubs, a non-technical term for large focus cities.
For most non-US airlines, it is more technically correct to use the term home base rather than hub, since most of their flights are international and the so-called hubs are simply their home countries' largest airports, such as Dubai International Airport for Emirates Airlines or Singapore Changi Airport for Singapore Airlines.
Indeed, the application of the term 'hub' in such contexts is only recently popularised by American airline industry analysts and is often contested by local commentators.
All 30 of the busiest airports in the world serve as hubs for one or more major airlines
