Budget airline Wizz Air is establishing bases all over Europe- from its (delayed)
plan in Cardiff to numerous Italian bases, as well as several around the Balkans. However,
some of these bases have just a single aircraft stationed there- something very different from
what we might see with legacy carriers and their hubs (which also act as bases).
Considering this, let’s take a look at these aviation terms and how they differ.
While the word “base” can be used to define large, vast facilities
(i.e., military bases), reality can be different for airlines – especially low-cost carriers.
In fact, it can actually be as simple as a single aircraft and a handful of crew forming a base.
CAPA defines a base (or airport base in this specific context)
as an airport where an airline permanently bases aircraft and crew
and from where it operates routes. Expanding on its definition, CAPA adds:
“Both fleet and personnel return to the base at the end of the day. The aircraft
based at the airport do not necessarily always have to be the same tail numbers,
but the airline will typically keep a consistent complement of aircraft at a base.”
In this kind of setup, flight attendants and pilots come from the area surrounding the base
and report to work from their quote unquote “home address.” This concept is opposite to an
airline’s outstation, where an airport is merely a destination from which to deliver and pick up
passengers. At an outstation, the aircraft will only spend time at the airport conducting its
turnaround rather than parking there for downtime/short-term storage or maintenance.
Calling an airport an airline’s hub is more about its style of operations. While
bases don’t have to be hubs, hubs are almost always bases for airlines.
The ‘hub’ portion of the quote ‘hub and spoke’ model,
hub airports are those which airlines choose to connect passengers through-
a practice which is much more common with full service, legacy carriers. This will see
customers book a flight from Point A to Point C, requiring a stopover or transfer at Point B.
For small countries, this is typically a single airport- think Hong Kong for Cathay Pacific, Doha
for Qatar Airways, or Amsterdam for KLM. Airlines serving larger countries tend to have multiple
hubs. Air Canada has hubs in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal, while south of the border,
United’s larger hubs are at Denver, Newark, and Houston (although there are a few more).
Hub airports for airlines will also act as a base in the sense that aircraft and crew are
quote-unquote ‘based’ out of the airport, usually living in the surrounding city. The airline will
also tend to have some maintenance facilities at hubs, where jets can be serviced during downtime.
In the context of a budget airline running point-to-point operations
(primarily found in Europe), it should be clear that bases aren’t hubs. Indeed,
hubs don’t really exist for these types of carriers, and you typically wouldn’t be able
to book a connecting itinerary that would see a guaranteed connection through one of its bases.
To complicate definitions just a little more, we also have foreign crew bases. These are
typically established by legacy carriers that operate long haul and ultra-long-haul flights.
A foreign crew base won’t typically house an airline’s aircraft (unless we’re talking
about Qantas’ LAX maintenance base), but it will be the quote unquote ‘home airport’
for international crew members. These foreign bases are established due to
the long-distance nature of the flights between the airline’s home airport and a destination.
After crews have been on duty for 12 or more hours (likely being awake for much longer),
they’re expected to spend some time at their destination off-duty, recovering and resting.
Taking over for the return flight might be foreign crew based at this destination. Sadly,
with the global health crisis, some airlines have had to shut down their foreign crew bases.
Cathay Pacific was a notable example of this. Hopefully, this article has provided a clearer
sense of the difference between these aviation-related terms.
Did you know the difference between hubs and bases? Let us know by leaving a comment.