A transport hub (also transport interchange) is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include train stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stop, airports and ferry slips. Freight hubs include classification yards, airports, seaports and truck terminals, or combinations of these. For private transport, the parking lot functions as a hub.
Historically, an interchange service in the scheduled passenger air transport industry involved a "through plane" flight operated by two or more airlines where a single aircraft was used with the individual airlines operating it with their own flight crews on their respective portions of a direct, no change of plane multi-stop flight. In the U.S., a number of air carriers including Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Braniff International Airways, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Eastern Airlines, National Airlines (1934-1980), Pan Am, Trans World Airlines (TWA), United Airlines and Western Airlines previously operated such cooperative "through plane" interchange flights on both domestic and/or international services in the past with these schedules appearing in their respective system timetables.
Delta Air Lines pioneered the hub and spoke system for aviation in 1955 from its hub in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, in an effort to compete with Eastern Air Lines. FedEx adopted the hub and spoke model for overnight package delivery during the 1970s. When the United States airline industry was deregulated in 1978, Delta's hub and spoke paradigm was annexed by several airlines. A large number of airlines around the world operate hub and spoke systems facilitating passenger connections between their respective flights.
