Hubs of Major Air Freight Integrators

Four major air freight integrators account for the bulk of the global air cargo; DHL, FedEx, TNT and UPS. In 2012, UPS purchased TNT and integrated its network. Each integrator has a hub-and-spoke organization of their network with hubs clustered around the world's three major zones of economic activity; North America, Europe and Pacific Asia. The choice of the main consolidation hub is based upon an airport that is well located, has good infrastructure, but that does not necessarily service a very large local passenger market. The integrator is thus the airport's main customer and gets a privileged access to the runways. Louisville, Kentucky is the major air hub of UPS, while Memphis, Tennessee performs the same role for FedEx. One the above map, there is a high level of concentration of hubs in the Eastern Part of the United States, which roughly corresponds to its demographic centroid. Other hubs in North America are regionally oriented (with Toronto and Hamilton servicing the Canadian market for FedEx and UPS respectively), except Miami that services Latin America and the only airport with Hong Kong where three integrators are using the facility as a hub. In Europe, DHL and TNT have followed a similar strategy than their North American counterparts by selecting smaller airports to be their main hubs (Leipzig and Liege respectively). Hubs have also been established at intermediate locations such as Anchorage, Dubai and Bahrain. Although their initial use was for refueling, they became hubs in their own right.