5 airports where no airline has a 50% market share

In the United States, most airlines operate a hub-and-spoke system, which involves funneling passengers through large hub airports to efficiently offer connections to destinations across the country and to international cities.

Naturally, this led to many airports being dominated by traffic from a single airline operating a hub there. As a result, the vast majority of US airports have one airline which accounts for more than 50% of passenger traffic.

There are some airports, however, that do have multiple airlines competing for market share, resulting in no carrier operating a majority of flights from any given airport.

While these are rare as most airlines do not want to have to compete at their hub airports, there are a few instances where the appeal of operating a hub at a given airport is attractive enough to multiple carriers that it pushes market shares beneath 50% for even an airport's largest operators.

It is important to note that when it comes to smaller regional facilities that have just a handful of flights from most airlines, there will often be extremely fractured market shares due to the relatively limited presence of all operators.

In this article, we will take a deeper look at five US hub airports where no airline has a market share of at least 50%, all of which are among the nation's busiest in terms of passenger traffic.

1 Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

The only airport that is a hub for all three legacy carriers

The second-busiest airport in the United States, according to Department of Transportation statistics, Los Angeles International Airport is the rare facility that all three legacy airlines use as a major hub.

For starters, it is the key airport serving the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, one of the largest and most lucrative air travel markets in the world.

Furthermore, the airport also serves as a key gateway for travel to Asia and is used as a major transpacific hub by both Delta and American and, to a lesser extent, United, which also serves many destinations in the Asia-Pacific region from its San Francisco International Airport (SFO) hub.

Due to the extensive competition at the airport, no legacy carrier is even able to crack a 20% market share.

This likely stems from the fact that multiple other carriers have extensive operations at LAX, including several international airlines operating to and from the airport.

Alaska Airlines maintains a hub at the facility as well, and low-cost carriers Southwest Airlines and Allegiant Air both have operating bases at the airport.

2 Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)

Despite being a leader in the market, United hasn't achieved a 50% market share

Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) is the nation's fifth-busiest airport by overall passenger traffic and is home to major hubs for American Airlines and United Airlines.

However, neither carrier has been able to achieve a 50% market share in recent years, with United building up its presence in Chicago as American scales back to focus on its Sun Belt-oriented network.

Delta, notably, does not operate a hub at the airport, a reason why its ORD market share stands at just 4.42% and the airline operates flights to just a few hubs from the airport.

Furthermore, Southwest Airlines operates a major hub in Chicago but does so at Midway Airport (MDW).

3 John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)

Three airlines all have major hubs at the airport

John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) is the principal international airport serving the New York City Metropolitan Area, and three different carriers are all competing at JFK through their major hubs.

The airport is one of the largest hubs for JetBlue and Delta, both of which also have major operations at both LaGuardia (LGA) in New York and Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) in the Northeast. United Airlines notably also serves the region, with a major hub at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).

4 San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

United is very close to hitting the 50% benchmark

As the principal West Coast hub and transpacific gateway for United Airlines, it is unsurprising that the carrier has the largest presence at SFO.

However, it appears that the presence of Alaska Airlines (which does have a hub at the facility) and Delta Air Lines (which operates some widebody flights from the airport to its East Coast hubs) are just enough to prevent United from reaching the 50% benchmark to control a majority of traffic to and from the airport.

5 Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)

Southwest and United both have major presences at the facility

Another one of the Sun Belt hubs in American's network, Phoenix is also a major operating base for low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines.

While American Airlines dominates international traffic, Southwest maintains a major edge when it comes to domestic flights to and from the airport.

As a result, these two carriers competing for passengers prevent PHX from reaching the 50% threshold needed to achieve a majority market share.

Interestingly, Frontier Airlines also operates a base at PHX, but, interestingly, does not even have a 7% market share, according to statistics from the facility.