ABSTRACT This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the rise of so‐called ‘network cities’ through an empirical analysis of hubs in the global airline network. Standard airline databases do not feature the actual routes flown by passengers, and therefore, a new and previously untapped database is introduced. The employed data are transnational and feature origin/destination statistics with additional information on intermediate stops (if any), which allows a thorough assessment of hub structures in the global airline network. The first part of the empirical analysis presents a threefold hub assessment, i.e. (i) an overview of the major hubs in absolute terms, (ii) a similar overview of hubs in relative terms, and (iii) a measure that focuses on the number of cities that make intense use of a hub. The second part of the empirical analysis focuses on some aspects of the spatiality of hub‐and‐spoke organisation. This is achieved through an examination of the proportion of ‘regional’ hub passengers and some notable case studies.
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