INTERNATIONAL. Indonesia’s Soekarno–Hatta International Airport has been named as the largest ‘megahub’ in the world outside of the USA.
Analyst OAG has used a ‘connectivity index’, measuring the ratio of scheduled seat capacity to the number of destinations served, in determining the rankings of the megahub airports.
Source (all charts): OAG
Nine of the top ten airports in the ‘OAG Megahub Index’ are located in the USA, with Chicago O’Hare International in first. It scored 1,204 in the connectivity index; OAG noted that on a single day in August, there were over 270,000 possible connections between flights arriving and departing at the airport within a six-hour window.
Soekarno–Hatta ranked seventh, scoring 566. On its busiest day there were over 40,000 potential connections between flights within six hours, connecting passengers between 71 destinations.
Tokyo Haneda placed 11th on the list, with London Heathrow the highest-ranked megahub in Europe in 15th. OAG noted that while Heathrow placed well ahead of other European airports in its 2015 report, the gap is closing with Frankfurt ranked 20th and Amsterdam Schiphol 21st.
“For many years Heathrow has been the number one hub in Europe and that position remains solid despite the increasing competitive range of airports in Europe,” said OAG Senior Analyst John Grant.
“In the next decade with existing capacity constrained it is inevitable that until the third runway is operational that other airports will close the gap on Heathrow.”
Sao Paulo Congonhas is the largest megahub in Latin America but its ranking has fallen since the 2015 edition of the report, from 7th to 23rd place.
Low-cost megahubs
OAG has also ranked the top 25 low-cost megahubs by determining the number of online connections (connections between the same carrier) for low-cost airlines.
US airports, where domestic connectivity dominates, hold the top five places. Chicago Midway is ranked in first for the second year in a row, with Southwest Airlines operating nearly 90% of the flights in August 2016.
OAG said that Gol had created the best low-cost megahub outside the USA at Sao Paulo Congonhas Airport.
Thailand’s Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok is the highest-ranked low-cost megahub outside the Americas, with carriers within the AirAsia group representing almost half of the scheduled flights in August. Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen is the largest European low-cost megahub.
New to the Top 25 low-cost megahubs list this year are Bengaluru International in India and Fort Lauderdale in the US, where IndiGo and JetBlue lead the way, respectively.
The 2016 edition of the OAG Megahub Index can be downloaded here.
