Let's see: Southwest - no hubs (in the usual sense of the word) - makes money Other airlines - hubs (you can't get there without going there) - makes no money Hubs, while increasing the number of points reachable by a single flight, are also an inefficient use of aircraft. The aircraft spend too much time on the ground at hubs and not in the air making money David ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Kurtzke" <kurtzke@up.edu> To: <AIRLINE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU> Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 10:41 Subject: Re: [AIRLINE] American Airlines to try rolling hubs > American still doesn't get it -- it is a big enough airline to offer more > point-to-point service. You have the same work force at origin & > destination ends, but you would need much less at the hubs. Yes, there > will always be a need for hubs, and many passengers will still need to > transfer at some airport (not necessarily a hub) but more point-to-point > service spreads out traffic and lessens congestion at the hubs. Piedmont > (of very happy memory) started hubs as a way of competing with much > larger airlines like American. > > john > > -- > John F. Kurtzke, C.S.C. > Department of Mathematics > 278 Buckley Center > University of Portland > Portland, OR 97203 > 503-943-7377 > kurtzke@up.edu