Hubs at Risk: Exposure of Europe’s Largest Hubs to Competition on Transfer City-Pairs

摘要

Hubs are airports used by airlines as transfer points to get passengers to their destination. Each of the five largest European hubs – Amsterdam;;Charles de Gaulle;;Frankfurt;; Heathrow;;and Madrid – are closely connected with one former national flag carrier. Some fears exist in Europe that the expansion of the Gulf carriers with their hubs in Dubai;;Abu Dhabi and Doha endangers the existence of European hubs with regard to transfer city-pairs that include at least one long-haul leg. Our paper examines the actual exposure to competition by combining airline schedule data with methodology to measure competitive transfer connections. We give the percentage of the transfer city-pairs of the five largest European hubs that is exposed to competition. Further;;we determine the main competitors to each of these hubs. One important result of our paper is that despite of the increasing market share of Gulf carriers;;the main competition for transfer traffic is still among the five largest European hubs with Munich and Istanbul being another two strong contenders. Hence;;our paper puts into perspective the competitive risk posed by Gulf carriers and their hubs.