Originally Posted by JimInOhio

The way I always thought about the question was very much just like what you wrote. It was only after reconsidering my thoughts that I was missing the bigger picture. If UA or any other airline was truly dominated by a hub-and-spoke mentality then it would it really matter where they put their hubs as long as they make geographic sense? Does anyone think UA could move their ORD hub to MKE or IND and have it be successful on the same scale as it is at ORD? Heck, their market share in either of those cities would instantly dwarf what it it at ORD. To the traveller going from La Crosse to Jacksonville, it wouldn't matter in the least.

By the same token, if hub-and-spoke is really what it's all about then UA should start a hub at ATL to serve the southeast/Florida. There's nothing DL can do for a person going from Grand Rapids to Ft. Myers that UA can't do regardless of whether UA's hub is in ATL or Valdosta (just for fun). As long as they fly the routes, it doesn't matter to the passenger.

So why have hubs disappeared from most non-large cities and why are there almost no dual-hubs (ORD is the only that comes to mind)? What I think is the obvious answer is market capture in very large cities is the legacy 3's real bread and butter when it comes to making money. By no means am I claiming the L3 airlines don't care about connecting domestic passengers or don't actively try to do so. I don't think I made any such claim in my prior post, either. It's just that's not where their money is largely made and so it's why UA has a midwest hub at ORD and certainly not at IND. Now when it comes to connecting passengers, they by all means want to do it for international travel and again, that objective dovetails with dominating the market of large cities.