ABSTRACTThis paper aims to contribute to the literature on the rise of so-called ‘network cities’ throughan empirical analysis of hubs in the global airline network. Standard airline databases do notfeature the actual routes flown by passengers, and therefore, a new and previously untappeddatabase is introduced. The employed data are transnational and feature origin/destinationstatistics with additional information on intermediate stops (if any), which allows a thoroughassessment of hub structures in the global airline network. The first part of the empiricalanalysis presents a threefold hub assessment, i.e. (i) an overview of the major hubs in absoluteterms, (ii) a similar overview of hubs in relative terms, and (iii) a measure that focuses onthe number of cities that make intense use of a hub. The second part of the empirical analysisfocuses on some aspects of the spatiality of hub-and-spoke organisation. This is achievedthrough an examination of the proportion of ‘regional’ hub passengers and some notablecase studies.