New jets help passengers avoid congestion at hub airports
A growing number of passengers are bypassing congested hub airports and flying directly, as airlines take advantage of new jets to redraw their networks. Since the dawn of the jet age, airlines have flown large and fuel-hungry planes on the busiest intercontinental routes. These link big airports, before passengers transfer on to smaller planes to connect across a region. But advances in aircraft technology have put this “hub and spoke” model under pressure. Airlines can now use smaller and more efficient single-aisle jets, typically associated with shorter trips, on long journeys, opening up direct routes that would have been uneconomical with larger planes. Passengers flying on United Airlines across the Atlantic next summer will be able to take direct flights from the US East Coast to destinations including Bilbao in Spain, Palermo in Italy and even Greenland. “Smaller, fuel-efficient aircraft like the Boeing 737 Max 8 have enabled new nonstop service to burgeoning niche leisure destinations within reach from the US East Coast,” said Patrick Quayle, senior vice-president of global network planning and alliances at United Airlines. “Our point-to-point portfolio taps into the growing interest in diverse European locales,” he said. Other senior airline executives said that, while the hub airport was not dead, passengers were keen to bypass big airports, in part because of the disruption which has gripped many congested hubs since the pandemic. “We do hear that some passengers are avoiding the very big hubs . . . where there have been delays,” said Bogi Nils Bogason, Icelandair’s CE. The changes have led to a shift in how passengers use large airports over the past decade. Among people flying through 10 of the world’s busiest international airports last year, 55% were flying directly to their destination rather than connecting between flights. This was up from a near 50-50 split in 2015, according to a Financial Times analysis of data from OAG, an aviation analytics company.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2025-01-08/general/new-jets-help-passengers-avoid-congestion-at-hub-airports
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New jets help passengers avoid congestion at hub airports
A growing number of passengers are bypassing congested hub airports and flying directly, as airlines take advantage of new jets to redraw their networks. Since the dawn of the jet age, airlines have flown large and fuel-hungry planes on the busiest intercontinental routes. These link big airports, before passengers transfer on to smaller planes to connect across a region. But advances in aircraft technology have put this “hub and spoke” model under pressure. Airlines can now use smaller and more efficient single-aisle jets, typically associated with shorter trips, on long journeys, opening up direct routes that would have been uneconomical with larger planes. Passengers flying on United Airlines across the Atlantic next summer will be able to take direct flights from the US East Coast to destinations including Bilbao in Spain, Palermo in Italy and even Greenland. “Smaller, fuel-efficient aircraft like the Boeing 737 Max 8 have enabled new nonstop service to burgeoning niche leisure destinations within reach from the US East Coast,” said Patrick Quayle, senior vice-president of global network planning and alliances at United Airlines. “Our point-to-point portfolio taps into the growing interest in diverse European locales,” he said. Other senior airline executives said that, while the hub airport was not dead, passengers were keen to bypass big airports, in part because of the disruption which has gripped many congested hubs since the pandemic. “We do hear that some passengers are avoiding the very big hubs . . . where there have been delays,” said Bogi Nils Bogason, Icelandair’s CE. The changes have led to a shift in how passengers use large airports over the past decade. Among people flying through 10 of the world’s busiest international airports last year, 55% were flying directly to their destination rather than connecting between flights. This was up from a near 50-50 split in 2015, according to a Financial Times analysis of data from OAG, an aviation analytics company.<br/>