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next year Singapore Airlines plans to
reopen the world's longest non-stop
airline flight rather than going through
London or Los Angeles passengers will
travel in a bespoke long range Airbus
a350 up over the Arctic before arriving
in New York 18 hours later Singapore Air
has been busy buying the next generation
of ultra long-haul jets for the route
but it should take care in the long term
new fuel-efficient planes could pose a
serious threat to its business model
here's why Singapore Airlines along with
cafe Pacific British Airways and
Emirates are in essence global hub
carriers Delta Airlines pioneered the
model in the u.s. in the 1950s
hub-and-spoke networks mean you can use
fewer planes and have a better chance of
filling them with passengers and making
profits you can connect five cities with
just four daily flights if one of the
cities as a hub if all the connections
Direct it takes 10 daily flights these
days that pattern has been replicated on
a global scale
half of all the passengers at Dubai
Airport now catch connecting flights and
about 30 percent of Singapore Hong Kong
and London Heathrow there's a problem
with such networks if you're not trying
to cover as many destinations as
possible you're better off just selling
direct connections between the most
popular cities budget airlines Southwest
and Ryanair proved this vividly in
recent decades by cherry-picking the
best routes and using the savings to
offer cheaper tickets range limitations
mean airlines have been using a more or
less unchanged hub-and-spoke model since
the 747-400 was introduced in the late
1980s but the introduction of new
versions of fuel-efficient jets like the
Boeing 787 Airbus a350 and Boeing
triple7 acts offers the tantalizing
opportunity to offer point-to-point
flying on a global scale
a present millions in Southeast Asia
can't fly direct to the US Australians
have to change fights on route to Europe
South America is off-limits to almost
all of East Asia if more fuel-efficient
planes can make such REITs viable that
will open up a world of possibilities
for travelers where the world's hub
carriers could face a turbulent future