'Power of the DFW hub': Why your next trip across the Pacific might be via Texas

06.02.2025 - 17:41 / thepointsguy.com / Brian Znotins

Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) is America's second busiest airport and one of its largest hubs. Travelers today can get from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Fiji with one quick stop at DFW; a route that 20 years ago would have taken three or more flights to complete.

Nadi International Airport (NAN) is one of DFW's newest nonstop destinations. Fiji Airways began thrice-weekly flights Dec. 10, the latest in a surge of new Asia-Pacific routes from the megahub.

And while there are certainly plenty of North Texans eager to enjoy the beaches of Fiji, the new service is about a lot more than just Dallas and Fort Worth.

"This new route significantly enhances Fiji Airways' connectivity in North America," said Andre Viljoen, CEO and managing director of the airline, in a statement.

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Fiji Airways, which recently joined the Oneworld Alliance that includes DFW's hometown carrier American Airlines, benefits from connections to American's expansive network of routes from the airport. This includes at least 17 routes from Dallas, including to Boston, Miami and New York, that Fiji Airways is selling with its own "FJ" code — known as a codeshare — according to schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Since 2019, DFW has added four new nonstop routes to the Asia-Pacific region — Auckland Airport (AKL) in New Zealand; Brisbane Airport (BNE) and Melbourne Airport (MEL) in Australia; and NAN in Fiji — while also seeing Tokyo flights shift to the more convenient Haneda Airport (HND) from Narita International Airport (NRT), Cirium data shows. And in 2025, Cathay Pacific will add flights to Hong Kong International Airport (HGK) — American flew the DFW-HGK route until 2019 but exited the market during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic — and EVA Airways flights to Taipei's Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE).

"It's the power of the DFW hub," Brian Znotins, senior vice president of network planning at American, said in an interview. American has added new flights to Auckland and Brisbane in addition to shifting its Narita nonstop to Haneda, while most of the other additions are on Oneworld partners.

The hub is "great for our partners in Oneworld who are looking to feed the entire U.S., Latin America and Canada — depending on which direction they're going, there are many different efficient routings you can offer over DFW," Znotins added.

Qantas, a longtime American partner, will add a fourth weekly DFW-MEL flight in February 2025 and more than double capacity on its DFW-Sydney Airport (SYD) route when it swaps a 236-seat Boeing 787-9 for a 485-seat Airbus A380 next August.

"Post-Covid,