Focus city

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In the airline industry, a focus city is a location that is not a hub, but from which the airline has non-stop flights to several destinations other than its hubs. For example, Northwest Airlines had focus city operations at Indianapolis, serving 17 non-hub destinations^[1] as of June 2007.

Compared to a hub operation, flights from focus cities are often less frequent, served by smaller regional aircraft, and cater more to origin & destination traffic instead of connecting traffic. From Indianapolis, Northwest serves Philadelphia 3 times daily with a 50-seat CRJ, but the nearby Detroit hub has 8 daily flights with mainline aircraft.

The term "focus city" is somewhat of a misnomer, since it generally refers to an airport rather than a city. For example, US Airways has focus city operations at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, but not at the two other major airports for the New York City region: John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens or Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey. Other terms with equivalent meaning are "hublet" or "key city."

Focus cities are also commonly used by low-cost operators such as Southwest Airlines or Ryanair that primarily fly point-to-point and thus do not have large concentrations of hub operations.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Map of US Airways's routes and indicator of their focus cities
• Map of AirTran's routes and indicator of their focus cities
• JetBlue route map with "key cities"