View From the 23rd Row

Hubs and hub cities. If you fly domestically in the US, hubs are a way of life. Most major domestic carriers use hubs. Hubs are exactly as they sound, a place where the air carrier funnels in all these flights from various locations and than flies back out - like a bicycle spoke (hence you'll hear about a hub and spoke system). Hubs are a way of filling up planes and increasing revenue or keeping expenses down, whichever way you look at.

If you are flying, particularly in America, it is important to know your hub cities. Tickets tend to be cheaper from these locations, more availability of flights arise from these areas and my favorite, worst customer service comes from these sites. Beats me why this is (poor customer service in a hub city) perhaps because you are the top dog you feel no need to work on being nice? All I know is that many of my experiences in hub cities have not been as pleasant as remote locations.

Hub cities usually have the long delays, because they are so jammed with flights coming in. Hubs can be very inconvenient for the customer, making you make a connection. Hub airports are bigger (miles and miles of gates) and more elaborate (shopping malls, fancy restaurants). Hub airports are where you will often change carriers, with some big name international carrier putting you into that city and than some smaller American carrier taking you home.

So without further adieu here is a list of some air carriers and some their hub cities (to find a complete list, check out the airline's respective website):
American - Chicago O'Hare (ORD) , Dallas-Forth Worth (DFW), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA) and I believe Boston (BOS) and New York City (JFK).
Continential - Newark (EWR), Houston (IAH).
United - Washington Dulles (IAD), Chicago O'Hare (ORD), San Francisco (SFO), Denver (DEN), New York City (JFK).
Delta - Atlanta (ATL), Salt Lake City (SLC), Cincinnati (CVG).
Northwest - Detroit (DET), Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), Memphis (MEM).
US Airways - Philadelphia (PHL), Charlotte (CLT), Las Vegas (LAS), Phoenix (PHX), Pittsburgh (PIT).
AirTran - Atlanta (ATL).
Alaska Airways - Seattle (SEA).
International (very partial list).
Air Canada - Toronto (YYZ), Montreal (YUL).
British Airways - London Heathrow (LHR).
United Arab Emirates - Dubai (DXB).
Air France - Paris (CDG).
Alitalia - Rome (FCO).
Lufthansa - Franfurt (FRA), Munich (MUC).
SAS - Copenhagen (CPH).
ANA - Tokyo (NRT).
Air New Zealand - Auckland (AKL).
Quantas - Sydney (SYD).
Austrian - Vienna (VIE).
KLM - Amesterdam (AMS).
Olympic Airways - Athens (ATH)
South African Airways - Johannesburg (JNB)



Sidenote - My crush flies out of London today, leaving for good. Not sure when I will see him again, if ever. Sigh, I'm depressed.