17 responses to “Cranky on the Web: More Hubs Aren’t Coming to the US”

1. 

   Chris Brown (not that Chris Brown)

   Jan 10, 2026 at 5:38 am

   Nice to see Susan Glazer reached out to you, she covers the Hopkins airport beat very well. Especially for an industry that doesn’t always get the details right! Definitely no hub again for Hopkins, the days of walking the C Concourse in the early 1990s when I interned there with all the Continental jets lined up (no regional jets yet) is a great memory but long gone. For the aviation history nerds like myself, the United/Continental/United saga at CLE is an interesting one…and hard to imagine that US Air ran a competing hub/hublet at CLE in the late 80s & 90s is kind of amazing as well.

   Reply
2. 

   Matt D

   Jan 10, 2026 at 6:25 am

   In my opinion, “Simple Flying” and “lame” have long belonged in the same sentence.

   That site, along with countless others like it (Facebook is loaded with them), gives me the impression not of legitimacy, but of a basement hobbyist who has probably never even seen a plane, much less flown on one, is ran by some lonely dude trying to pass off his fantasies and wish lists as “breaking news”. They also intentionally post mismatched, misleading, and outright fictional headlines and pictures in what is a clearly desperate attempt at ginning up clicks, likes, and comments.

   Though why they, despite spending almost none of their lives in actual sunshine, would take such an intense interest in something like planes, is a mystery in its own right.

   It’s worse than the Airliners.Net forums and what’s that dude behind the San Bernaghetto Airport and Avatar Airlines fiasco.

   Just ignore those sites and articles. Their credibility sits exactly at zero.

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3. 

   Will

   Jan 10, 2026 at 8:33 am

   CLE obviously won’t become a hub, but I do think there are some possibilities:

   – AUS for Delta (already dipping toes in the water)
   – FLL for United (through some future M&A situation)
   – SAN is already a growing hub for Alaska?

   Reply
   1. 

      SandyCreek

      Jan 10, 2026 at 9:00 am

      Judging by the most recent release from Austin about the airport gate assignment: https://www.austintexas.gov/news/austin-bergstrom-international-airport-and-airline-partners-finalize-historic-use-and-lease-agreements-support-multi-billion-dollar-expansion-program

      > Concourse B will be home to non-signatory airlines, Southwest Airlines as the Concourse B anchor tenant with 18 gates, United Airlines with 5 gates, and 3 gates will be available for domestic common use.

      > Concourse A will be home to all international flights and also non-signatory airlines. Delta Air Lines, as the Concourse A anchor tenant, will have 15 gates, American Airlines will have 9 gates, and Alaska Airlines will have 1 gate.

      Call me a pessimist if you will, but I doubt 15 gates (or 18, for that matter being) is sufficiently large to facilitate banked hub operations. Can it do rolling departures and an assortment of connections? Yes. Will it be of the magnitude of any existing delta hubs? I doubt it.

      Reply
      1. 

         Kevin

         Jan 10, 2026 at 9:20 am

         I think we’ll see AUS become more of a focus city (or what they used to call “S-curve” cities) on par with what RDU looked like pre-COVID. Good mix of hub and P2P flying, but nothing anywhere near the scale of MSP, SLC, etc..

         Reply
         1. 

            Carl

            Jan 10, 2026 at 9:58 am

            Eventually Alaska Airlines, if it continues to grow and stays independent will need to create a mid continent hub. It will start as a focus city that adds spokes. It may even start opportunitisticly… Could it be Nashville? With Alaska starting with longer flights where Southwest is at a disadvantage without food, entertainment and upgrades? STL where there isn’t a dominant carrier?

            Reply
            1. 

               Will

               Jan 10, 2026 at 10:08 am

               I am thinking Chicago O’Hare would be an excellent place for Alaska’s mid-continent hub. It needs more traffic & fighting over gates right now ! Plus, think of the connection opportunities with AA’s vast international network !

               Reply
            2. 

               Ian L

               Jan 10, 2026 at 11:15 am

               AS doesn’t need a midcontinent hub; AA is in the same alliance and covers things just fine. Just like how US Airways didn’t need a midcontinent hub when they were *A.

               What’s more likely is American continues to cede LAX to AS, eventually dropping to some international flights and service to hubs as Alaska has planes to put on everything else.

               Reply
               1. 

                  southbay flier

                  Jan 10, 2026 at 11:48 am

                  I don’t think AA can cede LAX to AS either. AS doesn’t have the fleet of the big 4 nor the scale to compete with them outside of SeaTac IMO. Plus, AS has to defend its home base.

               2. 

                  Carl

                  Jan 10, 2026 at 2:11 pm

                  AS won’t be able to grow in the USA without a mid-continent hub. They are reaching the limit of what they can serve from SEA PDX and SAN without a mid-continent hub.

                  Relying on AA doesn’t let AS serve and keep their elites. There are too many drawbacks for an AS elite to use AA on anything beyond a rare basis.

                  AS has been pulling back at LAX and SFO – AS is not treating them as hubs or trying to flow traffic there. AS’s route structure at LAX and SFO is opportunistic or tied to it’s other strengths.

      2. 

         Tim Dunn

         Jan 10, 2026 at 10:23 am

         SandyCreek,
         there will be common use gates above the preferential or exclusive use gates noted above.
         and DL only has preferential access to 18 gates at SEA so it doesn’t take 20 plus gates to build a hub.

         BNA is struggling to give WN the gates it wants so it is unlikely anyone else will build their presence there in the next five years or more.

         Just based on history, DL has led legacy airlines in organically building hubs and focus cities; still, the size of DL’s focus cities have ebbed and flowed over time – some got bigger while others have plateaued in favor of other focus cities.

         Reply
   2. 

      Ian L

      Jan 10, 2026 at 11:11 am

      AUS is the only net new one. SAN has been hub-y for Alaska for awhile. FLL is a hub for NK/B6 and UA having a hub there would be at the expense of one or both of those two.

      Reply
   3. 

      Will

      Jan 10, 2026 at 11:25 am

      Thinking about this more… I think it might be a good time to think about the role of a hub!

      Historically they’ve been used for two things: 1) Connect people and 2) Move a lot of O&D traffic. The best hubs can do both pretty well (DFW is phenomenal at both, JFK/EWR are super strong on 2 and okay on 1, ATL is super strong on 1 and pretty good on 2, etc.).

      A lot of the un-hubbed places are economically-struggling places that focused heavily on 1 – CLE, PIT, STL, etc. – without a lot of 2.

      Meanwhile, WN built up a cottage industry focused on 2 over 1 (with a bit of 1). They made focus cities in some smaller markets like AUS, PHX, DEN, MCO, FLL with a lot of O&D traffic but limited connecting traffic.

      But part of why WN has struggled, in my view, is that the upper middle class has really moved upmarket. They like trips to Europe now, not just trips to Disney or whatever (not that Disney is really much cheaper anymore, other than wrt airfare).

      So, I think there is more opportunity in medium-sized cities to build up mini-hubs focused on 2. DL is probably the most advanced on this – SEA, BOS, and AUS are all calls in this direction. UA is lucky to have hubs in cities that are all pretty premium and so they have less of a need for this. AA is way behind and in fact went the other direction under everyone’s favorite CCO. But making mini-hubs in prosperous cities with O&D cities with real international service (doesn’t have to be a ton! think London and Paris and seasonal leisure destinations, not year-round to Frankfurt) may be the future, more than banked mega-hubs. So AUS SAN SEA BOS BNA FLL RDU (some of which already have a degree of this) may be the future, especially as you can buy traffic from WN.

      I am also not sure that WN has a real reason to exist – put differently, in terms of capital allocation of Boeing 737s, they might have better returns with F cabins and ties to loyality programs + international networks.

      Reply
4. 

   George Romey

   Jan 10, 2026 at 11:27 am

   FLL is low margin. It makes a poor Southeast domestic hub given it’s location. Jacksonville to FLL is around 400 miles. Does the high fare/margin flyer want to fly 400 miles south to turn around and fly hundreds of miles in the other direction?

   Reply
5. 

   lavidaloca

   Jan 10, 2026 at 11:36 am

   Cleveland has the unique distinction of having been de-hubbed, twice, by the same airline. In the late 1980s, United closed its CLE hub (which was small-ish) in order to use the assets to build up IAD. Continental came in around 1989 and built it up through to when United (which merged with CO) shuttered it again, in 2014. No, CLE isn’t going to be a hub again. It was never profitable for CO and the airport and city, despite a total catchment area of around 2 million, does not generate sufficient traffic to pump flights through as a hub. The mid-sized city hub format has long gone and isn’t coming back (MEM, BNA, RDU, PIT, CLE, STL, BWI, etc….). The larger mid-continent hubs that carry on (DTW, MSP) have built in benefits, larger economies, and more corporate traffic.

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6. 

   Sean McQ

   Jan 10, 2026 at 12:21 pm

   Curious if hub/focus city status might be looked at more for credit card signups and spend potential than total O&D these days. Would an airline look at building up a presence in a higher income demographic only because of the potential for the credit cards as that seems to be what keeps the airlines profitable these days.

   Reply
7. 

   John G

   Jan 10, 2026 at 1:58 pm

   It’s going to be a significant problem to build a job at AUS.

   To start with, WN already has a mini hub there with about 90 flights a day. Plus AA still has a sizable operation with 40 a day.

   Throw in that there are already other large hubs in Texas at DFW and IAH, with smaller WN hubs in DAL and HOU.

   So they will struggle to really get local traffic at AUS, and there is major competition at hubs in the area.

   Not going to be easy. They could and probly will build a mini hub but no more than that.

   Reply

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