Airports - March April 2015

AIRPORT ANALYSIS
DUAL HUBS
Pudong, the carrier only serves Europe
and Australia (Frankfurt, Milan, Münich,
Paris, Melbourne and Sydney).
China Eastern (CE) claims both of
Shanghai’s airports (Hongqiao and
Pudong) as its hubs. From Hongqiao,
which is a mainly domestic city facility, it
offers flights to Hong Kong, Macau, Seoul,
Taipei and Tokyo. From Pudong it flies an
extensive route network covering most
of Asia as well as Frankfurt, Honolulu,
London, Los Angeles, Moscow, New York,
Paris, Rome, San Francisco, Toronto and
Vancouver. The carrier also runs two
smaller hubs in Xi’an and Kunming (both
with flights to Asian destinations only).
All Nippon Airways (ANA) in Japan has
its main hub at Tokyo/Haneda Airport
(HND), but Osaka/Kansai and Tokyo/
Narita (NRT) are also important hubs
for its international flights. The airline’s
route network extends through Asia, the
United States and Western Europe and
focuses on business destinations; its
only remaining resort routes are from
both Tokyo airports to Honolulu. From
NRT it serves many Chinese destinations
as well as Chicago, Delhi, Düsseldorf,
Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York, San
Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Singapore
and Washington. Increasingly, though,
more and more long-haul flights are being
offered from HND, which is more popular
because it is easier to reach for many
travellers, including links to Frankfurt,
Hanoi, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles,
Münich, Singapore and Vancouver. There
does not seem to be any particular logic
as to why some cities are served from
Narita and some from Haneda, or in the
case of five destinations (Paris, Bangkok,
Beijing, Jakarta and Manila), from both.
Japan is an interesting case because
both its major airlines use the same
two Tokyo airports as hubs. Just like
ANA, Japan Airlines (JAL) also uses
HND, NRT and Osaka/Kansai as its three
international hubs. Altogether, JAL
serves 33 international destinations, six
of them from Kansai (Bangkok, Honolulu,
Los Angeles, Seoul/Gimpo, Shanghai and
Taipei) – a larger selection than rival ANA.
The primary long-haul service from HND
is to London/Heathrow while from NRT,
JAL offers a wide range of destinations
including Boston, Chicago, Frankfurt,
Guam, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Moscow, New
York, San Diego, Sydney and Vancouver.
In addition Bangkok, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh
City, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Paris and
Singapore are all served from both Tokyo
hubs. There is a lot of duplication in the
Tokyo aviation market, both between
carriers as well as between airports.
In Australia, just like the US and Canada,
one hub can never be enough for an
airline that wants to serve the entire
nation. That is why Qantas uses three
hubs: Brisbane (with flights to Hong Kong,
Los Angeles, New York, Nouméa and
Singapore), Melbourne (serving Dubai,
Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles and
Japan Airlines
Boeing 787-8
JA824J (c/n 34834)
is pushed back
at Tokyo/Narita
on November 17,
2012. The carrier
has hubs at both
Tokyo airports in
competition with
All Nippon Airways.
(AirTeamImages.
com/Angelo
Bufalino)
The 2004 merger
of Air France and
KLM produced one
of Europe’s largest
carriers. Each
retains its own
identity with hubs
at Paris/Charles
de Gaulle and
Amsterdam/Schiphol
respectively. In
August last year
one of KLM’s
last remaining
McDonnell Douglas
MD-11s taxies
to departure
at Schiphol.
(AirTeamImages.
com/Jeffrey
Schafer)
Qantas has
three hubs across
the vast Australian
continent, allowing it
to offer connectivity
to the country’s
major population
centres. One of
the carrier’s Airbus
A330s comes in
to land at Sydney/
Kingsford Smith
Airport. (Sam Chui)
Singapore) and of course Sydney, which
links to all of the same destinations
as Brisbane and Melbourne and also
to Bangkok, Dallas, Honolulu, Jakarta,
Johannesburg, Manila, Queenstown,
Santiago de Chile, Shanghai and Tokyo.
Smaller rival Virgin Australia (VA) follows
its larger competitor’s regional pattern and
also uses the same three hubs as Qantas.
All have connections to Auckland and
Christchurch in New Zealand, Denpasar
in Indonesia and Nadi in Fiji – popular
spots for Australian tourists. Melbourne
and Sydney both offer flights to Los
Angeles and destinations in the Southern
Pacific such as Honiara, Port Moresby,
Port Vila, Queenstown (from Brisbane)
and Nuku’alofa (from Sydney). Virgin
Australia’s only connection to Europe is
from Sydney, via Abu Dhabi.
Does it work?
While different airlines around the globe
have different ideas of how to differentiate
their multiple hubs, in all cases the Latin
saying ‘divide et impera’ (divide and
conquer) has some relevance for the
airlines’ strategies. Reasons and details
for dual, triple or even quadruple hubs
may be very different but they all aim to
gain more customers than a single hub
ever could. Geography plays an important
factor in many cases, such as in the US and
Australia, where vast distances dictate
the need for multiple hubs to serve large
population centres. In Europe the case
for multiple hubs is far more complex,
with business connectivity, manufacturing
centres, financial markets and population
growth driving the need for hubs to be
much closer together.
For the most part it works, but as has been
the case in Milan, changing fortunes of one
airline can quickly re-write an airport’s
master plan, requiring a rapid shift in
emphasis as it seeks to bring in new carriers
to serve existing markets, or branch out
into new ones.
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