It is clearly all the network carriers’ fault. They have been growing at 30% per year at the most congested airports. Wait — maybe they haven’t. Did you ever stop to think that perhaps a hub and spoke is, in fact, quite efficient, as it maximizes the traffic/demand on the fewest amount of flights? I certainly don’t want to pick on Jetblue or anyone specifically but I think you might be best-served not spewing nice catch-phrases before you actually think them through. There is a place for both point-to-point, and hub & spoke flying in this nation’s airline industry, and in fact most airlines use both models in their own networks. This includes JetBlue, Airtran, and Southwest, though they might disguise them with other names. Whether or not the 250-mi rule is another foolish thing the ATA is trying in order to squeeze more value out of its proposal for the member carriers, what is clear is that a new system most-likely needs implementation in order to make the system/funding far more equitable.

As for the small city argument, I think we agree that most people from small cities are connecting through a hub and not ending their journey at it. But that connecting itinerary will be over 250 miles so the passenger will end up paying some taxes on the trip. I can do some number crunching on this when I get some time, but I’ll bet that of all the people who fly on itineraries that are less than 250 miles, most of them are in business markets like the ones I mentioned.