: being or relating to a system of routing air traffic in which a major airport serves as a central point for coordinating flights to and from other airports

Examples of hub-and-spoke in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Further, there’s little interest outside the U.S. where the hub-and-spoke system isn’t common and rail systems are more developed. Brian Foley, Forbes, 30 Oct. 2024 Until then, most botnets used a hub-and-spoke system—a hacker would program a single command server to distribute orders directly to infected machines, known as zombie computers. Garrett M. Graff, WIRED, 21 Mar. 2017 In addition to creating a no-frills, few-fees experience, Southwest adopted a point-to-point routing system, allowing passengers to fly between cities without transferring, rather than the hub-and-spoke model, which requires fliers to stop over in another city. Lila MacLellan, Fortune, 26 Oct. 2024 The airline, which uses a hub-and-spoke model through Reykjavik, has made a business out of connecting smaller U.S. cities to Europe. Alison Fox, Travel + Leisure, 4 Oct. 2024 Because of Icelandair’s hub-and-spoke model, passengers won’t ever hitch a ride straight to a city like Paris or Amsterdam, but Ingason said plenty of travelers are taking advantage of that stop in Reykjavik. Alison Fox, Travel + Leisure, 10 June 2024 Historically, this has been referred to as a hub-and-spoke system, in which the United States is the hub to each of its five treaty alliances (Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand), but those alliances, in turn, do not interact. Jeffrey W. Hornung, Foreign Affairs, 10 Apr. 2024 In this hub-and-spoke model, the drones are launched from a handful of blood banks in major cities, zooming through the skies at 75 miles per hour. Simar Bajaj, NPR, 11 Apr. 2024 Many major retailers operate on a hub-and-spoke system, centralizing inventory in these large warehouses for quick distribution around the country and enabling phenomena like overnight or one-day delivery. Erleia, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1980, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of hub-and-spoke was in 1980

Dictionary Entries Near hub-and-spoke

Cite this Entry

“Hub-and-spoke.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hub-and-spoke. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!