European airlines and their hubs

Europe is home to some of the world’s largest and most influential airlines, which operate extensive networks across the continent and beyond. These airlines can be broadly classified into two categories: low-cost carriers (LCCs) and legacy carriers. LCCs offer cheap fares and point-to-point services with no premium classes, often using secondary airports and charging extra fees for ancillary services. Legacy carriers, on the other hand, offer more comprehensive and premium services, often using primary airports and transporting passengers through their hubs. In Europe, almost all of them are flag carriers, with a long history.

A hub is an airport where an airline concentrates its flights and offers connections to various destinations. Hubs allow airlines to increase their market share, optimize capacity utilization, and enhance customer loyalty. Using a hub airlines can offer flights to significantly more destinations with a higher frequency, compared to point-to-point carriers.

For legacy carriers, Europe is a difficult market due to high competition from ultra-low-cost carriers (mainly Ryanair), which have a strong presence in all parts of the continent. The European airline sector is also getting more and more consolidated, with three main airline groups: Lufthansa Group, Air France-KLM, and IAG.

In this article, we will explore the characteristics, strategies, and challenges of European legacy airlines and their hubs.

Lufthansa Group: five hubs in Central Europe

We will start our analysis with the biggest aviation group in Europe: Lufthansa Group which comprises, among other companies, of four legacy carriers: Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, and Brussels Airlines. The regional airline Air Dolomiti also plays an important role as Frankfurt and Munich hub feeder. As part of the multihub strategy, LHG airlines offer their passengers flights from hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, and Zurich as well as smaller, national hubs in Vienna and Brussels.

Frankfurt

Frankfurt Airport is the largest and oldest of the group's hubs. It's the main Lufthansa base, from which, the airline offers flights to five continents. All of the company's Airbus A330s, A340-300s, Boeing 747-400s, B747-8s, and B787-9s are stationed here. Lufthansa currently offers almost 200 destinations from this hub

Munich

Munich is the secondary hub of Lufthansa. Almost all of the destinations served from here are also flown from Frankfurt, except for the Eastern European ones, for which Munich is the most important hub. Unlike Frankfurt, the airline does not offer flights to South America from here since the cancellation of the Munich-Rio de Janeiro route in late 2023. Lufthansa has all of their A380s and A350s stationed here. Terminal 2, inaugurated in 2003 serves as an exclusive facility for Lufthansa and its Star Alliance partners.

Zurich

Zurich is the only hub (the airline also has a base in Geneva) of Swiss International Air Lines, the flag carrier of Switzerland. In early 2024 the airline's fleet consists of 88 aircraft (Airbus A220-100/300, A320 family, A330-300, A340-300, and Boeing 777-300ER). It's one of the three big LHG hubs, with 113 destinations being served by Swiss in the summer 2024 schedule. Due to very positive financial results, Swiss continues expansion and introduces many new intercontinental routes, such as Toronto, Seoul, and Washington.

Vienna and Brussels

Austrian Airlines has its hub at Vienna Airport. The airline specializes in connecting Eastern Europe and the Balkans to the World, as well as in maintaining Austria's connectivity to the most important destinations. The importance of this in the LHG network hub slightly decreased within the last decade (numerous destinations European and intercontinental destinations including Miami, Beijing, and Dubai have been dropped), due to unsatisfying financial results and significant competition from ULCCs (both Ryanair and Wizzair have a big presence here). However, with the reception of the new Boeing 787-9s the airline plans to rebuild its position and network, starting with a new route to Boston.

Brussels Airlines acts as a mostly point-to-point carrier with limited transfer traffic. Due to high brand recognition, the airline specializes in African connections (the only non-African long-haul route in 2024 is New York). Brussels operates a fleet of over 40 A320 family (flying to main European cities and holiday destinations) and A330-300 aircraft.

Air France-KLM: the Dutch and French cooperation

Air France-KLM is another major aviation group in Europe, consisting of two flag carriers: Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, as well as their subsidiaries such as Transavia, and Air France Hop. The group operates from two main hubs in Paris and Amsterdam. Air France-KLM offers its passengers flights to over 300 destinations across five continents.

Paris

Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) is the main base of Air France, where the airline operates its entire fleet of Airbus A220-300s, A330-200s, A350-900s, Boeing 777-200ERs, and B787-9s, as well as, most of their A320 family and B777-300ER aircraft. Air France flies to more than 200 destinations from CDG, including many long-haul routes to Africa, Asia, North America, and South America. Due to huge O&D traffic to/from Paris, the airline focuses on long-haul destinations and operates flights to only the biggest European airports (for example the only destinations in Poland are Warsaw and Krakow - AF flies there only a few times per week, in comparison KLM has five destinations in this country). The airline also benefits from France having strong ties with French-speaking countries and multiple French overseas territories. In 2023 Air France decided to end Paris Orly operations by 2026 and focus on flights from CDG airport.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam Schiphol is the second hub of Air France-KLM. It is the home of KLM, where the airline operates its entire fleet. KLM flies to more than 145 destinations from AMS, including many long-haul routes to Africa, Asia, North America, and South America. Unlike Air France, KLM has a very extensive regional network. The airline's regional subsidiary KLM Cityhopper offers a wide variety of flights to regional airports in the UK, Scandinavia, Poland, Germany, and other European countries. Thanks to the single terminal KLM can offer comfortable and fast transfers. The Schiphol is currently encountering problems, as multiple Dutch politicians want to artificially limit the airport's capacity and effectively destroy the KLM network, ending AMS role as a hub.

IAG: International Airlines Group

IAG (international airlines group) is another prominent aviation group in Europe, formed by two flag carriers: British Airways and Iberia, along with their subsidiaries such as Aer Lingus, Vueling, and LEVEL. The group has two main hubs in London and Madrid, as well as a small hub in Dublin.

London Heathrow

British Airways anchor their operations in the London Heathrow Airport, the busiest airport in Europe (at least pre-pandemic). The airline operates an extensive US and European network from here. Since LHR is heavily slot-restricted and London has a large O&D demand BA focuses on the most important cities and doesn't operate flights to secondary and smaller airports, (this is a similar case to Paris CDG and Air France). The smallest aircraft the airline uses to fly from this hub is the Airbus A319, which makes Heathrow the only (besides Istanbul) European hub without regional jet operations (some other airlines fly there using smaller planes, but BA CityFlyer Embraer fleet is based at LCY Airport).

Madrid

Madrid Barajas is the only hub of Iberia. The airline itself is famous for its extensive Latin America network (16 destinations in 2024), due to Spain's connections with mostly Spanish-speaking countries (Iberia also has two destinations in Brazil). The airline fleet in early 2024 comprised of 90 aircraft (not including Iberia Express and Regional), including wide-body A330-200/300s and A350-900s. Iberia operates around 130 destinations from its hub, most of them in Europe, including numerous domestic destinations.

Dublin

The capital of Ireland is the hub of Aer Lingus. In 2015 the airline was fully taken over by IAG. Aer Lingus has an all-Airbus fleet of 56 aircraft. The airline is mostly offering point-to-point connectivity from DUB to Europe directly competing with Ryanair. However, EI also offers transfers to the US (and Toronto in Canada), which are meant to relieve Heathrow and British Airways. Aer Lingus is able to fly to secondary cities in the US such as Cleveland and Hartford-Bradley thanks to A321LRs (and A321XLRs which are expected in 2024), both ideal aircraft for these 'long and thin' routes.

Turkish Airlines: 'Airline which flies to the most countries in the world'

Even though Turkish is often not treated as a European airline, it should be, as its hub, Istanbul Airport is located on the European continent. Turkish Airlines flies to the most countries in the world and thanks to the new hub airport (which opened in 2019) is expanding every year.

Istanbul

New Istanbul Airport is the only Turkish Airlines hub, it features five runways and the world's largest airport terminal building under a single roof. This contributes to almost unlimited growth possibilities, at least in terms of infrastructure (contrary to most European hubs, which are congested and oversaturated). Turkish fleet consists of around 380 aircraft (excluding AnadoluJet or from 2024: AJet). The airport's location allows seamless transfers between Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. This allows Turkish to serve around 120 countries on six continents (flights to Australia, initially via Singapore, are starting in 2024)

Smaller Players

There are also multiple smaller legacy carriers in Europe. They do not belong to any of the previously mentioned airline groups (AF-KL has a 19,9% stake in SAS). As the airline market in Europe is consolidating their future is uncertain. These airlines will be taken over by larger players or will face bankruptcy, not being able to compete with them due to lack of funds.

SAS and Copenhagen

Although SAS claims to have three hubs (Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm), only Copenhagen can be considered a hub with multiple long-haul destinations and transfer passengers. The airline itself operates an all-Airbus fleet (A320 family, A330-300, A350-900) with regional aircraft (E195, CRJ-900, ATR 72-600) operated by its subsidiaries and other carriers under wet-lease agreements. SAS is currently in transition between Star Alliance and Sky Team alliance, which results in airline operating flights to both alliances hubs such as Atlanta and Newark. Besides SK has flights from CPH to three Asian destinations (Tokyo, Shanghai, and seasonally Bangkok).

Finnair and Helsinki

Finnair is an interesting example, as the airline managed to build a relatively large network and fleet, despite having a rather small market in Finland. All of this was possible due to transfers between Europe and numerous Asian destinations taking advantage of Helsinki's convenient location on the route through Siberia. Finnair managed to build a fleet of almost 80 aircraft, including 25 widebody. In 2022 due to the Russian airspace closure, Helsinki lost its competitive advantage and Finnair had to reorganize its network and strategy by opening more destinations in the USA and starting a cooperation with Qatar Airways. Despite this AY still operates many flights to Asia due to brand recognition in many countries.

LOT Polish Airlines and Warsaw

LOT is a fast-growing airline that is building its hub in Warsaw. In recent years, LOT added many destinations and aircraft to its fleet, which now comprises of 75 Embraers, Boeing 737s, and 787s. The airline operates flights to destinations with a large Polish diaspora such as New York and Chicago and to places that have economic ties with Poland (Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Delhi, Mumbai). LOT also benefits from thousands of transit passengers flying between Asia, America, and Europe. Currently, the airline's expansion is limited by a crowded airport in Warsaw, however, this is about to change with the opening of the new CPK airport near Warsaw, which is planned around 2030.

TAP Portugal and Lisbon

TAP is the flag carrier of Portugal. The airline has its hub in Lisbon, where its all-Airbus fleet consists of Airbus A330-900s, A330-200s, and A320 family (in total around 80 aircraft excluding TAP Express' Embraers). Similarly to Iberia, TAP benefits from economic and cultural ties between Portugal and Brazil and offers its passengers ten destinations in this South American country. The opening of flights to Belem, Natal, Montreal, and Toronto as well as increasing frequency to other American destinations became possible thanks to the delivery of the Airbus A321LR, which as with Aer Lingus, can serve long-haul routes with less demand. Currently, the airline cannot increase its offering due to problems with slots at saturated Lisbon Airport and thus is forced to open flights from Porto to European and American destinations. In 2022 the Portuguese government announced plans to privatize the state-owned airline.

ITA Airways and Rome

ITA Airways was founded in 2020 and started operations in October 2021 as bankrupt Alitalia's successor. The airline bought several assets from its predecessor, including the Alitalia brand and AZ flight code. Nowadays the airline operates a modern fleet with many types of Airbus aircraft. ITA faces strong competition from low-cost carriers (mostly Ryanair) on European routes and from American and Asian carriers on long-haul flights. The airline's main hub is Rome, where all wide-body aircraft are based. ITA also maintains a small base at Milan Linate Airport, which is important for business traffic to Italy's economic capital. In 2023 Italian government reached an agreement with Lufthansa, which will acquire 41% of ITA's shares with the intention of buying the remaining 59% in the next years. This is now (early 2024) awaiting approval from the European Commission.

Air Serbia and Belgrade

Air Serbia began operations in 2013 after changing its name from Jat Airways. The airline is small (a fleet of only around 30 aircraft), but it is worth mentioning because it has ambitions to create an important hub in Belgrade and has been growing rapidly in recent years. Air Serbia also operates long-haul flights to New York, Chicago, and Tianjin with an Airbus A330-200 fleet. Time will tell whether this growth will be financially sustainable and whether the airline will be able to maintain this pace of expansion.

Aegean Airlines and Athens

Athens Airport can be deemed a regional hub, with possibilities to connect to Greek domestic destinations and cities in the Mediterranean region. The airline's fleet consists of over 60 Airbus A320 family aircraft. Besides this Aegean also owns Olympic Air - a regional subsidiary with an ATR fleet. A3 does not operate long-haul flights because it does not consider them profitable.

Air Baltic: hybrid carrier with a small hub in Riga

The last airline is also very small but with big ambitions. Air Baltic is a hybrid airline, with low-cost style economy class, and standard business class. It operates a hub in Riga, as well as bases in Vilnius, Tallinn, and Tampere. The airline plays an important role in creating the Baltic's connectivity to major European hubs and bigger cities. Air Baltic has around 50 Airbus A220-300s with an additional 30 on order.

Conclusion: An important role, but also challenging future

Europe’s airline hubs are more than just transit points; as they are the engines that drive economic growth, cultural exchange, and global integration. Aviation hubs play an important role in maintaining European connectivity to the world. They also are facing many challenges, such as competition from the Middle Eastern carriers and the European Union's climate policy.

The future of European aviation hubs will depend on several factors, such as the evolution of consumer preferences, the innovation and adaptation of the airlines, and the role of the regulators and policymakers. The hubs that can best balance the trade-offs between efficiency, profitability, sustainability, and customer satisfaction will have a better chance of succeeding in the post-pandemic era. However, no hub can afford to be complacent, as the aviation industry is constantly changing.