MegaHub Airways

One round per year, 1988 to 2005. Each launch pays traffic points and charges fleet and gate upkeep; the net funds next year's growth. Demand and the aircraft catalog step forward on the real schedule years — 1988, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005. 326 airports. Anything closer than 75 nm to your hub is a drive, not a flight. Indiana kept no daylight time in 1988. A bigger terminal is a slower one: minimum connect time rises 5 minutes for every 5 gates you lease. Slack absorbs delay. An aircraft turned at the minimum, every time, carries the morning's delay all day — and its own connections stop working. Connections are worth most around 30 minutes above the minimum, not at it. Customs adds 30 minutes to any connection arriving from abroad. ETOPS constrains twins; trijets and quads crossed oceans freely. Score is net passenger-miles — filled seat-miles minus a penalty for empty ones — on great-circle O&D distance, revealed only when you launch. A stop en route sells three markets — hub to stop, stop to destination, and hub to destination at a one-stop discount that grows with the detour. Local hub traffic boards first; connections take the seats that are left. Market share follows an S-curve on frequency — but passengers expect fewer daily options the longer the haul, so one daily 767 to Honolulu captures half its market while one daily to Oklahoma City captures a sixth. An aircraft on the ground at DFW holds a gate the whole time it sits there. Parking it overnight at a spoke is how you free one. Arizona and Hawaii keep no daylight time.