Simbha Posted December 6, 2011 Author Share Posted December 6, 2011 I've run an analysis which, I hope, will (at least somewhat) address the question of international IAH traffic...I took the data from the USDOT found here and used it to compute the number of routes between the following two types of airports; direct sources are Wikipedia (provided) but the ultimate source for these are legitimate (ACI and Bureau of Transportation Statistics at USDOT).Group A: Top-20 US airports based on international passenger traffic in 2009 (Source)Group B: Top-30 global airport based on international passenger traffic in 2010 (Source)For the latter, I then removed the two US-based airports that appear on the list (JFK and MIA). I then counted the number of routes between a Group A airport and all Group B airports. I get the following (numbers appearing after the dash indicate number of routes):1. John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) -- 212. Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) -- 202. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) -- 204. Logan International Airport (BOS) -- 194. Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) -- 196. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) -- 186. O'Hare International Airport (ORD) -- 188. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) -- 158. Miami International Airport (MIA) -- 158. Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) -- 158. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) -- 1512. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) -- 1113. Charlotte/Douglas International Airport (CLT) -- 913. George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) -- 913. McCarran International Airport (LAS) -- 913. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) -- 917. Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) -- 818. Orlando International Airport (MCO) -- 719. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) -- 519. Honolulu International Airport (HNL) -- 5Based on this, it does appear that Niche's claim that IAH is a second-tier international gateway does seem valid. HOWEVER...Now, I will also point out one apparent flaw in using this methodology...Many foreign airports serve regions that are composed of many densely populated small countries. Thus, many of these airports may be in Group B solely because of flights between their own country and neighboring countries (and not the US). Given that this is the case in Europe (and the comparable affluence of its citizens), it's not surprising that 16 of the 28 busiest international airports are on that continent (18, if you include Turkey). Now, given that these airports have geographic proximity also to northeastern US cities, it is then not surprising that all five of the airports in this region appear in the top 10 of the above list - and that an additional five airports on the East Coast show up on the list at all. How much of this is driven by the specifics of the methodology I've used - versus how much is reflective actual traffic between these airports - I really don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 I've run an analysis which, I hope, will (at least somewhat) address the question of international IAH traffic...I took the data from the USDOT found here and used it to compute the number of routes between the following two types of airports; direct sources are Wikipedia (provided) but the ultimate source for these are legitimate (ACI and Bureau of Transportation Statistics at USDOT).Group A: Top-20 US airports based on international passenger traffic in 2009 (Source)Group B: Top-30 global airport based on international passenger traffic in 2010 (Source)For the latter, I then removed the two US-based airports that appear on the list (JFK and MIA). I then counted the number of routes between a Group A airport and all Group B airports. I get the following (numbers appearing after the dash indicate number of routes):1. John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) -- 212. Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) -- 202. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) -- 204. Logan International Airport (BOS) -- 194. Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) -- 196. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) -- 186. O'Hare International Airport (ORD) -- 188. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) -- 158. Miami International Airport (MIA) -- 158. Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) -- 158. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) -- 1512. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) -- 1113. Charlotte/Douglas International Airport (CLT) -- 913. George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) -- 913. McCarran International Airport (LAS) -- 913. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) -- 917. Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) -- 818. Orlando International Airport (MCO) -- 719. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) -- 519. Honolulu International Airport (HNL) -- 5Based on this, it does appear that Niche's claim that IAH is a second-tier international gateway does seem valid. HOWEVER...Now, I will also point out one apparent flaw in using this methodology...Many foreign airports serve regions that are composed of many densely populated small countries. Thus, many of these airports may be in Group B solely because of flights between their own country and neighboring countries (and not the US). Given that this is the case in Europe (and the comparable affluence of its citizens), it's not surprising that 16 of the 28 busiest international airports are on that continent (18, if you include Turkey). Now, given that these airports have geographic proximity also to northeastern US cities, it is then not surprising that all five of the airports in this region appear in the top 10 of the above list - and that an additional five airports on the East Coast show up on the list at all. How much of this is driven by the specifics of the methodology I've used - versus how much is reflective actual traffic between these airports - I really don't know.Why would we consider routes only to the top 30 international airports? It seems that a true gateway city would likely be the airport that has more international routes to more destinations, not just to the world's other hub airports.Further, why would we make the ranking based on the number of routes (incorrectly limited as you have done), rather than number of passengers or even number of flights?Any analysis of gateway status that puts Charlotte (2 international airlines, 36 international destinations, and 2.5 million annual international passengers) in a tie with IAH (11 international airlines, 66 international destinations and 8.5 million annual international passengers) is suspect, to put it nicely.If we are going to divide our gateways into different tiers, Charlotte and IAH are clearly not even in the same tier.Similar with the ranking of DFW above IAH. DFW's comparable numbers are:(7 international airlines, 48 international destinations and 5.5 million annual international passengers) and would seem to put DFW in a tier below IAH, not above it.There are many more anomalies in your rankings, entirely the result of the faulty methodology. Your methodology, at its extreme, would rank as the number 1 gateway an airport having one flight per week with the smallest possible plane to each of the top 30 international airports, even if each flight flew half empty. It is less extreme versions of this that cause you to have Charlotte and IAH tied. Relying solely on passenger counts could cause similar anomalies, so I think a proper analysis has to look primarily at the number of passengers along with the number of destinations (not artificially cut off at the 30 largest international airports), possibly include number of flights (although passenger counts might be a pretty good proxy for number of flights), and, less importantly, but also worthy of inclusion, the number of international airlines.If we are going to divide our gateway cities into tiers, I would absolutely put Houston in the second tier, not the first.PS The link to DOT stats does not work. I would love to see that data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simbha Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 PS The link to DOT stats does not work. I would love to see that data.I won't quote everything you've said, just for space sake. But, I'll first apologize for not posting the link properly. Here it is:http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/international-series/pax2010.txtThis dataset represents boardings on international flights with the US airport as the origin. It is NOT a dataset about incoming flights, but is probably highly correlated with the latter - certainly, in terms of number of flights, if not number of passengers. It's the best fine dataset on passengers I could find, however, so I'll use it.Now, your critique about the accuracy of the above measures is a fair one. I focused on the Top 30 international destinations because I felt this data was closer to addressing the relationships between international airports. I still stand by that analysis, but you're correct that it doesn't address the larger picture in the best way. So, I've conducted another analysis with the full above-linked dataset and the US's top 20 international airports. Disclosure: The only data which I left out was for several small (in terms of these US passengers) for which I didn't spend the time looking for their IATA codes. In total, these airports represent less than 0.1% of total US international passengers - and no single route which was ignored accounted for more than 3,600 passengers in any month.To conduct the following analyses, I first grouped all airports by country, and then by 'region'. The regions used were as follows:- Australasia consists of Australia, New Zealand and surrounding islands including those in the Pacific- Caribbean includes those islands of the Caribbean and surrounding Atlantic waters, as far south as - but not including - Trinidad/Tobago- East Asia includes those Asian main continent countries along the eastern edge of the continent as well as east Asian islands (including Japan)- Europe includes any and all countries on the European (sub-)continent, including all of Russia (yes, also St. Petersburg) and Turkey. I've included St. Petersburg and other eastern Russian airports in Europe for convenience. I don't feel this significantly affects the analysis.- Indian Subcontinent includes all countries as part of the subcontinent, including its namesake, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other surrounding areas- Latin America includes those countries that are part of the Americas, including Mexico- Middle East is somewhat ambiguous, but generally includes those countries which I think most would agree are part of this region - excluding Egypt- North Africa includes the Saharan region of the continent, including Egypt- North America includes just Canada (since Mexico is included in Latin America)- South Africa includes all Sub-Saharan areas of the continentWith foreign airports so grouped, I then counted: (i) the total number of passengers on flights from each US airport to each region and (ii) the total number of 'monthly routes' from each US airport to each region. I'm happy to send the raw and composite dataset to anyone who requests it.I then conducted the following analysis to determine the 'concentration' of each US airport's connections with the regions. As a measure of concentration, I used the method employed by economists in computing 'industry concentration' - the Herfindahl-Hirschmann Index. To compute this index for passenger counts, I first took the ratio of the number of passengers for a single US airport to a single region to the total number of passengers for the US airport. I then squared this 'share' (after first multiplying by 100) and summed the squares across all regions for the US airport. This gives me a value of between 0 and 10,000 with a higher number indicating a higher concentration of routes across the regions. Here are the resulting indices, along with other data (as noted):Airport Code - # of Int'l Passengers - Concentration Index - Region of Highest Concentration - % of Passengers Flying to Region of Highest ConcentrationATL - 9125638 - 2516 - Europe - 35%BOS - 3648394 - 5423 - Europe - 71%CLT - 2690855 - 2978 - Caribbean - 41%DFW - 5050427 - 3712 - LAmerica - 55%DTW - 2884937 - 2931 - Europe - 42%EWR - 11378344 - 3221 - Europe - 53%FLL - 3328230 - 3519 - Caribbean - 45%HNL - 3608548 - 6444 - EAsia - 79%IAD - 6170438 - 3594 - Europe - 57%IAH - 8324703 - 4329 - LAmerica - 62%JFK - 22783671 - 2863 - Europe - 48%LAS - 2114799 - 4341 - NAmerica - 59%LAX - 15519124 - 2033 - EAsia - 27%MCO - 3078006 - 2970 - Europe - 43%MIA - 16734897 - 3732 - LAmerica - 50%MSP - 2284062 - 3065 - NAmerica - 42%ORD - 10444998 - 2885 - Europe - 45%PHL - 3800394 - 3928 - Europe - 58%SEA - 2671760 - 3102 - NAmerica - 36%SFO - 8479209 - 2670 - EAsia - 41%IAH has the fourth highest concentration of these airports, with an index of 4,329. Only Honolulu (6,444), Boston/Logan (5,423) and Las Vegas (4,341) have higher indices. 62% of IAH outgoing passengers fly to Latin America. IAH also has the 8th-highest number of international passengers (8,324,703).I conducted an analysis using the same methodology but with route data instead. Here's what I got:ATL - 1166 - 2474 - LAmerica - 33%BOS - 632 - 2964 - Europe - 43%CLT - 414 - 2755 - Caribbean - 38%DFW - 580 - 4037 - LAmerica - 60%DTW - 401 - 2391 - NAmerica - 36%EWR - 1323 - 2668 - Europe - 43%FLL - 693 - 3768 - Caribbean - 50%HNL - 329 - 3870 - EAsia - 46%IAD - 792 - 2291 - Europe - 38%IAH - 1144 - 5044 - LAmerica - 69%JFK - 2114 - 2284 - Europe - 37%LAS - 375 - 3669 - NAmerica - 51%LAX - 1335 - 2345 - LAmerica - 39%MCO - 525 - 2604 - LAmerica - 30%MIA - 1746 - 3659 - LAmerica - 46%MSP - 439 - 4197 - NAmerica - 61%ORD - 1255 - 2297 - Europe - 29%PHL - 576 - 2896 - Europe - 40%SEA - 306 - 2921 - NAmerica - 38%SFO - 688 - 2210 - EAsia - 31%In this case, IAH comes up on top in terms of its concentration (5,044), with 69% of total routes to Latin America.I'm not going to get into the argument that's been had above. What I will say is that IAH is clearly an important gateway between the US and Latin America. Whether it can be labeled as an "international gateway" or not is semantics, in my opinion. As far as both international passengers (#8) and international routes (#7), it is an important player and - more importantly for this discussion, I think - I believe the city can do more to provide a better tourist experience for the international visitors it does get, regardless of their region of origin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Yet more evidence that Houston is, in fact, a gateway city to the world, even aside from Latin America:Houston to be 6th city in US for A380 service. The new list of US cities with A380 service: NYC, Miami, LA, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Houston. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 I believe the city can do more to provide a better tourist experience for the international visitors it does get, regardless of their region of origin.I completely agree with this. And we could also do a much better job of marketing. I cannot believe the Convention & Visitors Bureau does not work with Bush Airport to capitalize on the enormous traffic that passes through every year. It is better than it used to be. Not long ago, one could pass through IAH without every seeing a clue as to what city one was in. But it needs to be MUCH better. I love going through O'Hare, for example, because one gets such a flavor of Chicago, in art displays, welcome signs, concessions, etc. etc. 40 Million + people pass through there every year and they are captive (and bored) for some time. IAH should be covered in Houston promotional material... photo displays, historical displays, displays about the Museum District, Theater District, Medical Center, NASA, the Port, welcome signs, mini-branches for MFAH, HMNS, Childrens Museum, etc., etc., etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 While interesting, the concentration information Simbha calculated is not terribly useful in determining an airport's status as an international gateway because it is inherently subject depending on where one draws the lines. For example, what would be Miami's passenger concentration if we drew the line to combine Latin America and the Carribean (a completely reasonable line)? Similarly, what would IAH's concentration be if we drew the lines strictly along continental boundaries? An analysis of concentration broken down to the route level would be more useful (although a whole lot more work).) Just found a cool US DOT table:As has been mentioned before IAH is the 8th largest US gateway, making Houston the 7th largest US gateway city, by passenger traffic. Interesting to note: Even if we were to disregard all Latin American traffic (as nonsensical as that might be), IAH would still be the 12th largest US gateway airport. (Of course if we played games of disregarding various regions of the world, we could have all sorts of fun making up incoherent and irrelevant rankings) ;-)Table 6 : Top 40 U.S. Passenger Gateways to the World, Scheduled Passenger ServiceUS Foreign US Foreign 12 months ended Sept 2010Gateway City - Apt. - Passengers - New York, NY JFK 22,424,658 Miami, FL MIA 15,902,787 Los Angeles, CA LAX 15,098,801 Newark, NJ EWR 11,152,288Chicago, IL ORD 10,338,987 Atlanta, GA ATL 8,997,205 San Francisco, CA SFO 8,079,700 Houston, TX IAH 8,038,591 Washington, DC IAD 6,074,944 Dallas/Ft.Wth, TX DFW 4,948,143 Philadelphia, PA PHL 3,702,652 Boston, MA BOS 3,545,267 Honolulu, HI HNL 3,508,217 Fort Laud, FL FLL 3,012,646 Orlando, FL MCO 2,883,964 Detroit, MI DTW 2,754,214 Guam, TT GUM 2,613,086 Seattle, WA SEA 2,589,949 Charlotte, NC CLT 2,572,107 Minneapolis, MN MSP 2,202,612 Phoenix, AZ PHX 2,066,108 Las Vegas, NV LAS 1,994,535 Denver, CO DEN 1,840,705 San Juan, PR SJU 1,230,919 New York, NY LGA 852,018 Saipan, TT SPN 592,100 Salt Lake City, UT SLC 461,719 Portland, OR PDX 408,837 Baltimore, MD BWI 374,627 Tampa, FL TPA 359,647 Cincinnati, OH CVG 281,377 Memphis, TN MEM 269,224 Washington, DC DCA 251,762 Cleveland, OH CLE 242,495 Oakland, CA OAK 225,799 San Diego, CA SAN 225,373 Fort Myers, FL RSW 203,636 Anchorage, AK ANC 201,908 Kahului, HI OGG 195,627 St. Louis, MO STL 174,102 Source : U.S. Department of Transportation T-100 Segment Data Page 1 of 11/ Ranked in descending order according to latest year ended data.YE Sept. 2010 YE Sept. 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 Yet more evidence that Houston is, in fact, a gateway city to the world, even aside from Latin America:Houston to be 6th city in US for A380 service. They taught me the difference between "fact" and "opinion" in the 3rd grade. Seems like you might do well to take a refresher course.Interesting to note: Even if we were to disregard all Latin American traffic (as nonsensical as that might be), IAH would still be the 12th largest US gateway airport. (Of course if we played games of disregarding various regions of the world, we could have all sorts of fun making up incoherent and irrelevant rankings) ;-)Interesting to note: Even if we were to disregard the validity of data as applied to the context of discussions (as nonsensical as that might be), and even if we played games of joining phrases together that produce different meanings than were plainly intended, Houston19514 has, in fact, proven that it is still possible to troll a thread without it being fun for anyone but himself. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simbha Posted December 9, 2011 Author Share Posted December 9, 2011 Regardless of the discussion of whether Houston is an 'international gateway', 'second-tier international gateway' etc... What more can be done to build Houston's reputation - internationally and domestically - as a tourist destination or, at least, what can be done to create an appeal for those that do visit for other reasons (e.g., medical or business) to stay and have a positive vacation experience? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 what can be done to create an appeal for those that do visit for other reasons (e.g., medical or business) to stay and have a positive vacation experience?Legalize everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simbha Posted December 9, 2011 Author Share Posted December 9, 2011 Legalize everything.Interesting hypothetical: What would happen if Houston (or any other city) would legalize - let's not say murder, but at least - (regulated) retaliation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 Regardless of the discussion of whether Houston is an 'international gateway', 'second-tier international gateway' etc... What more can be done to build Houston's reputation - internationally and domestically - as a tourist destination or, at least, what can be done to create an appeal for those that do visit for other reasons (e.g., medical or business) to stay and have a positive vacation experience?I refer you back to my post #65 for consideration on this topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simbha Posted December 9, 2011 Author Share Posted December 9, 2011 I refer you back to my post #65 for consideration on this topic.I agree that we need to do more to promote the city within the airport(s). But, I believe this will have the effect of directing people who will already be staying in the city towards specific venues/events. Would that be enough to improve the city's reputation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 Interesting hypothetical: What would happen if Houston (or any other city) would legalize - let's not say murder, but at least - (regulated) retaliation?Retaliation is already legal and regulated, but as I recall, Dallas already has a disproportionate population of lawyers and I'm not sure that it has helped their tourism industry that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 I agree that we need to do more to promote the city within the airport(s). But, I believe this will have the effect of directing people who will already be staying in the city towards specific venues/events. Would that be enough to improve the city's reputation?A huge number of passengers pass through IAH without ever setting foot outside the airport or experiencing Houston in any way. That is the primary market I was aiming for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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