The economic effects of center-to-center directs on hub-and-spoke networks for air express common carriers

Integrated Global air express common carriers offer time-guaranteed freight delivery for international shippers. The hub-and-spoke network and its variations consolidate partial loads creating an efficient network structure that is widely used. We compare the economic effects of hub-and-spoke networks with center-to-center directs on the carrier's operations. Carriers were allowed to simultaneously load and off-load freight at each intermediate center. This permits multiple usage of aircraft carrying capacity. The model of hub-and-spoke networks is formulated as an integer program with center directs in the paths, evaluating the results against the Federal Express AsiaOne express network. Using the same aircraft configurations that FedEx uses, our solutions required a smaller fleet than hub-and-spoke with stopovers.