Newark Liberty International Airport has long been a difficult airport to love, which leads me to revisit a question I asked last year: was the federal government’s forced capacity discipline actually a blessing for United Airlines and its passengers? One year later, I’d say the answer is a definite yes.
Newark Airport Is Suddenly Punctual. Was Forced Capacity Discipline A Blessing For United?
Newark’s reputation for delays has been well-earned, thanks to a toxic mix of weather, air traffic control constraints, runway construction, congestion, and United Airlines operating a massive hub there.
But something appears to have changed. United Airlines is now touting that Newark Liberty International Airport leads all major Northeast airports in on-time performance so far in 2026, a remarkable turnaround for an airport that was mired in operational chaos not long ago.
According to United, Newark has outperformed New York JFK, LaGuardia, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington National for on-time flights this year. United also says it achieved its best-ever on-time performance at Newark in April and May while flying nearly 5.8 million passengers through the airport.
For an airport that has so often been synonymous with delays and air traffic control drama, this is a very welcome development. But it also raises a broader question: did the Department of Transportation and FAA inadvertently do United a favor by forcing capacity discipline at Newark?
Newark’s Improvement Did Not Happen By Accident
Newark did not magically outperform its peers. This came after a painful period of disruption in 2025, when the airport was hit by a miserable mix of air traffic control staffing shortages, technology problems, runway construction, and over-scheduling. The situation became so bad that the FAA stepped in to reduce the number of operations at Newark.
United, which dominates Newark, was furious at times, but also realistic in picking its battles with the Trump administration. If the airport cannot reliably handle the number of flights scheduled, then scheduling more flights is a recipe for even further operational nightmares.
The FAA later extended limits on Newark operations, with caps below prior levels in order to stabilize the operation. United CEO Scott Kirby has repeatedly argued that Newark needed to be treated more like JFK and LaGuardia, where capacity limits are part of the operating reality. Slot restrictions were not introduced officially, but all airlines were forced to cut back schedules.
And now, United is celebrating the results.
Was This A Blessing For United?
Last year, I cynically argued that the DOT’s intervention was actually good for United and I think my point has been validated one year later.
In the short term, fewer flights mean fewer seats to sell. That is not usually something an airline wants, especially at a fortress hub. But in a constrained market like Newark, cutting capacity can also help revenue if demand remains strong.
Basic supply and demand still applies. If United operates fewer flights from Newark but demand remains robust, fares may rise. That is not great for bargain hunters with more flexibility, but it can be very good for airline revenue.
There is also the customer satisfaction angle.
A hub that runs poorly damages the brand while a hub that runs well makes customers happier, even if fares are somewhat higher. United can now boast that Newark is suddenly leading the Northeast in on-time performance, and I imagine that does more for customer satisfaction than squeezing in marginal extra frequencies that collapse whenever weather or ATC constraints arise.
United may have lost some theoretical capacity but gained something more valuable: reliability, the very thing that pushed United’s top competitor, Delta Air Lines, to the pinnacle of the U.S. airline industry. Reliability leads to profits, because customers like to fly an airline they can rely on.
Beyond that, fewer delays mean fewer missed connections and all the associated costs like hotel vouchers, rebookings on other airlines, crew disruptions, and aircraft out of position. So yes, I think there is a strong argument that forced capacity discipline may ultimately be a blessing for United.
My Newark To Chicago Flight Was Still Delayed Two Hours…
Of course, data can say one thing and your personal experience can say another.
My recent United flight from Newark (EWR) to Chicago O’Hare (ORD) pushed back on time, which is what you want to see from EWR. But then we sat for nearly two hours due to air traffic control delays…over ORD.
To be sure, that is not really something I can blame United for (unlike the Wi-Fi that did not work on the flight). The problem was downstream, and ironically, Chicago O’Hare is the other major United hub where the DOT and FAA have stepped in to curb airline growth.
The FAA has capped operations at O’Hare this summer, limiting the airport to 2,708 daily operations after airlines filed schedules that would have pushed peak-day operations above 3,080. The agency said the cap was necessary to avoid congestion and reduce delays while the airport deals with infrastructure constraints.
Here, the problem was not an infrastructure constraint, but thunderstorms. Thankfully, I suppose, there were not congestion delays that made it even worse.
CONCLUSION
Newark Liberty International Airport becoming one of the most punctual major airports in the Northeast is a remarkable turnaround. United deserves credit for operating better, and the FAA and DOT deserve credit for forcing a more realistic schedule.
Was the forced capacity discipline a blessing for United? I’d say so. Fewer flights may mean higher fares, but they may also mean better reliability, higher customer satisfaction, and a stronger hub operation. Consumers may not like paying more, but they also do not like sitting for hours at Newark because the airport was overscheduled.
My own Newark–Chicago flight still ended up delayed for two hours due to ATC over Chicago, a reminder that the system remains fragile. But if the choice is between more flights that cannot reliably operate and fewer flights that actually run on time, I’ll take the latter.
top image: United Airlines
good follow-up
as usual, the actual data is available form the DOT and is far more valuable than any airline’s corporate claims.
first, the DOT only releases on-time for domestic flights because foreign carriers do not provide data on their flights.
second, the overall data shows that the non-sense that the UA fans made up DL’s operational performance has fallen victim to reality. DL has fixed its operational issues related to pilot staffing and DL is back in 2nd place in on-time and had a lower cancellation rate than AA or UA; WN continues to have a lower cancellation rate than the big 3 but pays for it w/ lower on-time.
and UA still is at the bottom of the US industry in baggage handling. No matter how much UA fans want to throw shade at any other airline, UA is not improving its baggage handling performance; there are half the number of bags carried by US airlines as passengers so baggage handling is not some tiny statistic that doesn’t matter.
and specific to cities, EWR does not have the best on-time among large hubs, even in the spring when it should be easy to operate well. EWR’s on-time as an airport was beat by ATL, CLT, MSP, SEA and SLC.
and UA hubs ORD and SFO had well below average on-time which simply proves that UA, at best, focuses on metrics in one place at the expense of worse performance elsewhere. UA’s overscheduling at ORD has resulted in poor reliability for that hub in May and June and that will come out with new DOT data. SFO is much more UA dominated and is operating poorly (as is often the case) and data will continue to show that.
and JFK and EWR’s performance in on-time is not much different. LGA is the underperformer in NYC and always will be; the airport just doesn’t have the space or runway geography and yet it is the preferred airport for short-haul flights from NYC -just as JFK is for longhaul domestic and international.
UA desperately wants to regrow EWR esp. now that NK is out of the game and has freed up flight space at EWR and B6 is in the process of reducing the size of its EWR operation.
There is alot of low cost competitor capacity coming out of EWR which will increase UA’s dominance.
Let’s see what the FAA decides on UA re-adding flights since EWR is not slot controlled but let’s be clear that UA’s goal was never to run a best in class airline but to dominate the market to a level that kept the feds from intervening in their operation.
LTD says, “DOT data through April shows that DL’s YTD on-time is back to #2 ”
DOT Cancellation %/On-time :14 % (1/1/26 – 4/30/26)
UA: 2.2%/78.3%
DL: 2.9%/78.4%
DL had 32% more cancellations than UA in the first four months of 2026.
LTD says, “DL has fixed its operational issues related to pilot staffing”
TRK1 says, “Delta over 200 cancels to today. 422 for Saturday and Sunday. United 35 today”
DL is still having trouble recovering from weather events and the performance difference between EWR and the other NYC airports is telling.
rebel, remind us, what does ‘LTD’ stand for? hehe…
300+ DL cancellations for each of the last two days = 600+ and rising so it looks like DL didn’t fix the pilot scheduling problem. Shocking for an airline that reportedly went 200+ days without a single cancellation under Richard Anderson. Ed Bastion seems resigned to this continuing throughout the summer and the pilots aren’t happy. Yikes!
LTD – the article is about OTP not lost baggage – no one cares about lost baggage because the US lost baggage rates are low anyway. Maybe keep on topic next time hey?
Also you compared EWR to a whole bunch of airports that aren’t as congested and not in the same weather/geography as NYC so not a surprise that they beat EWR? A small regional airport in California probably outperforms ATL in OTP but you don’t see us talking about it – once again your comment is irrelevant and no one cares.
I distinctly remember you saying how bad EWR is for UA and that Delta would beat UA in NYC but now Delta is losing consistently despite what happened in EWR – do you think that’s because UA is a best in class airline or because Delta isn’t a best in class airline? Like Why are they losing Tim, explain it to me.
Glad EWR is doing better these days. The runway and new terminal construction clearly weighed things down for a while. The lack of adequate FAA staffing also didn’t help. Hope they continue to improve. Looking forward to the long-term plans to completely rebuild the old A, B, C, into a brand new mega-terminal (expect that by 2040.)
Delta today (6;/15) again leads the pack with over 200 flights cancelled. They also lead on Friday and Saturday. By the way United has 35
Delta over 200 cancels today.(6/15) Over 420 on Friday and Saturday. United 35 cancels today
Delta over 200 cancels to today. 422 for Saturday and Sunday. United 35 today
another user name and yet the same theme comes from UA fans: they love to cherrypick anecdotes while ignoring trends because actual data and not anecdotes shows that other carriers – esp. DL – are not doing as badly as have said while UA is doing worse than they want to believe.
thunderstorms moved through ATL and DTW yesterday afternoon but have walloped the US for weeks; ORD has had far more days of bad weather so far this month than ATL or other DL hubs. The NE, as usual, is getting slammed by almost daily thunderstorms.
DOT data through April shows that DL’s YTD on-time is back to #2 after months of the UA fans telling us how badly DL’s operation was falling apart.
UA’s cancellation rate was higher than DL’s in April.
It is not anecdotal weather events but overscheduling of UA hubs that caused persistent operational problems that hurt UA’s operation in the past and the same thing is being repeated for 2026. ORD is pulling UA’s operation down far more than EWR’s improvement even before the usual negative impact of SFO – which is worse this year and likely will be all summer
IAH faces a week of heavy rain and bad operations.
EWR at best is on par with JFK; NYC on-time is hurt by LGA just as DCA hurt WAS performance – and yet LGA and DCA are the preferred airports and UA is relatively small there.
cherrypick anecdotes all you want. Anyone with even basic analytical skills can see that UA is trying desperately to find places to grow but is facing repeated operational challenbes at its hubs while other carriers are fixing their operational problems which UA fans were convinced would sideline those carriers.
and UA’s baggage handling is still bottom of the industry and not improving.
as hard as it is for some to accept, UA cannot and will not be an operational leader because of its strategies and the locations where it hubs.
you sure do get triggered easily.
But bingo card for today: Check! United MBR. You’re hitting your usual talking points early this week!
Classic Tim Dunn! Your experiences are mere “anecdotes“ while his opinions are the one true fact! Bah!
Any idea why? The weather over any airline hub is pretty much over IAH only.
Why is delta’s operation such a mess today? I don’t see any weather near them.
it’s not just Delta mainline either, Endeavor is up to 9% of all flight cancelled so far
MaxPower says, “Why is delta’s operation such a mess today? I don’t see any weather near them.
it’s not just Delta mainline either, Endeavor is up to 9% of all flight cancelled so far”
Exactly. Every airline takes a hit when weather events hit their hubs, but DL is still problems recovering. Ed Bastian admitted it is likely to continue through the summer because of the pilot scheduling problems.
The only thing that the comments section of this article will prove is that
1. UA AND its fans cherrypick what ever data they can find and ignore or argue against any data which presents a wholistic picture.
2. EWR simply is not one of the best performing hubs in ontime or cancellation; it is about on par with JFK but nowhere near as any number of interior US hubs.
3. whatever gain EWR saw from the loss of competitor flights was more than offset by UA’s growth at ORD and operations at SFO, both of which had to be reigned in by the feds.
4. Thunderstorms swept through DTW and ATL with the last line of storms not clearing under after 11 pm, when DL’s last flights normally depart from ATL. To no surprise, the UA fan nut jobs never managed to see or comment on repeated cancellations and delays at ORD that hve been the result of relentless tstorms all month and will keep up this week; and UA did not reset its operation every day w/ 0 cancellations. in fact, UA ROUTINELY has more cancellations to start the day than any other airline
5. the DOT does not care whether flights are flown by mainline or regional carriers as long as the major carrier’s code is on it. UA can and does excessively cancel its RJ operation to improve its mainline performance but nobody is fooled.
and as much as some want to ignore it, there is no competition for the bottom of the barrel with mishandled baggage. That title solely belongs to UA and there is no indication whatsoever that UA is fixing it.
and the bigger issue is that UA cannot grow its domestic network which it neglected for so long and run a best in class operation because UA’s hub airports in total are much more competitive and simply do not have the capacity to grow as other hubs do.
the notion that UA was or is going to be a class leading operator or marketer of regional jet service is simply a fantasy and always was and always will be.
and the substance of the dirt that UA fans have thrown at other airlines including DL is simply vanishing as some of us knew would be the case.
What? Lol. The comments are only proving that to you. No one else haha
I logically noted the facts that the UA fans desperately don’t want to hear.
EWR isn’t a class leading hub and I don’t expect any NYC hub ever will be. UA’s core argument is incorrect in that EWR doesn’t perform much differently than JFK and that is even with B6′ tendency to delay rather than cancel flights.
and the UA fans went on endlessly about how DL’s operation was failing because of DL’s pilot notification issues and yet DL has fixed that issue and the advantage – which was pretty small even for a few months – has been reversed.
but UA’s poor baggage handling has not reversed no matter how much UA fans want to argue it shouldn’t be discussed.
I discuss facts and data – all of it – and will continue to do so – and that is very disconcerting for a whole of UA fans.
Matthew gets the extra page clicks while the UA fans argue but fail to convince anyone of their positions
He enjoys proving things to himself 😉
He’s sure *proving* himself hard today!
Spectrum Boy, first take at least 200 MG of Zoloft, next self soothe, then realise an article about on-time performance in not about bags. The baggage obsession checks with your condition, but it is non-sequitur. Just like the fact DL leads all other airlines in Federal EEOC complaints by far, so is the most racist airline statistically. Random stats for the win?
Spectrum Boy, first take at least 200 MG of Zoloft, next self soothe, then realise an article about on-time performance in not about bags. The baggage obsession checks with your condition, but it is non-sequitur. Just like the fact DL leads all other airlines in Federal EEOC complaints by far, so is the most racist airline statistically. Random stats for the win?
let me add one more item to my list above.
UA fan nut jobs resort to personal attacks when they can’t actually counter the facts.
EVEN IF WE RESTRICT THE DISCUSSION TO ON-TIME, UA has lost the lead over DL which UA had for a couple of months.
and if we expand it to cancellation rates, UA’s recent performance relative to DL has deteriorated.
You can’t stand to admit that all of the dirt throwing that UA fans engaged in has evaporated – which I fully expected to be the case, in part because the size of UA’s advantage over DL was so small and DL would fix its pilot staffing problems but also because UA is shooting itself in the foot operationally in its quest to grow its domestic network – which I said would be a much harder task than for DL to grow its international position – and THAT TOO is proving to be the case.
and Baggage IS part of the operation. Picking and choosing what you want to talk about – even if you get the data right – means nothing if you undeperform so much on a metric that matters to the industry, even if you don’t think it matters.
EWR is simply not a best in class airport and no NYC airport ever will be.
UA is simply trying to regain some of the flight cuts the FAA imposed – and the FAA and DOT – whether they should or not – are managing NYC airport access with competitive goals and not just about on-time.
UA already had the highest dominance of any severely restricted large US airport and the FAA just might not allow any further increases to flights by UA even if the operation runs flawlessly.
LTD “UA is losing relative to DL, the gap between them has closed”… Then why is Delta losing in New York Tim? The article is about New York and United is kicking Delta’s ass? What has Delta done to lose this?
no, Andy,
the article is about on-time in NYC and UA is really not kicking anything.
UA has increased its share of the NYC market including relative to DL but you are incapable of seeing the big picture so let me repeat it again
1. DL and UA are not really the true competitors in NYC; the true competitors are everyone else that is trying to compete against DL and UA. DL and UA have both improved their share IN THEIR NYC HUBS relative to low cost competitors and that is far more valuable than the smaller difference between DL and UA.
2. DL is smart enough to understand that being the largest is not the best position to be in esp. in a market where the feds continue to step in to try to limit the big 2’s growth in NYC. NK is gone and they had 5-7% of capacity at both LGA and EWR.
3. UA is touting its size in NYC while at the same time claiming to be disadvantaged in needing to get back into JFK and wants to re-add flights which the feds made them cut due to UA’s repeated meltdowns at EWR.
DL is capable of seeing the big picture while UA – and you – are fixated on size for the moment.
Life is a marathon and not a sprint.
DL is more than winning in NYC and UA is too; the real question is who gets to grow more. I strongly suspect that, in five years, DL will be much larger than they are now – but flexing your size muscles makes no sense now.
And the real question for you is the same as it is for rebel and all of the others that love to tout UA’s size in whatever metric you discuss.
How come UA can’t turn its larger size into a profit advantage? even in 2025, UA flew 10% more ASMs than DL and had a $1 billion labor cost advantage but earned $1.6 billion less than DL.
Something is severely wrong w/ the way UA runs its business if it doesn’t earn more and doesn’t run a better operation than competitors.
My offer for $10,000 stands Spectrum Boy. I noticed you did not respond beofre…hmm…wonder why?
Anyway, if stats matter why is DL the most racist airline with more Federal EEOC complaints? Just let us know the excuse you have.
I don’t have the information to discuss this topic and I doubt seriously that you do either.
I don’t defend anything or anyone so you would be mistaken if you think I can’t call a spade what it is if that needs to be done.
Liebling, the spectrum is not an insult, it is a diagnosis (one I am licensed and qualified to make) I stand by it.
SB, EEOC is federal data and available. DL is the most racist airline per that, just like the 1% difference in bag rates you bring up for UA. Facts matter.
Can we stop with the LTD and “Spectrum Boy” stuff? It’s just so disrespectful. Have the debate, but no name-calling, please. Thank you Tim (and everyone) for participating in this discussion, which I find most interesting.
thank you, Matthew.
too bad you don’t run a whole lot more sites.
I have always believed that the people who have to resort to name calling are the ones that have the weakest arguments.
I participate in these discussions because I raise issues that others don’t; after 25 years in aviation social media, I know full well that I am going to step on some people’s toes but, if the free exchange of ideas is the goal, then people should be able to discuss and rebutt rather than name call.
thanks for providing a good place for discussion, Matthew
“I have always believed that the people who have to resort to name calling are the ones that have the weakest arguments.”
You must find your own arguments quite weak. You’re one of the biggest name callers out there to other posters — hence why others feel quite free to reciprocate with you.
What’s your current name for me when you run out of counter-arguments or just start lying, as usual? “Mini brain” is it?
Matthew’s request is fine by me, but how about you own up how you’re one of the worst about calling others names before you pretend you’re wearing a halo.
Tim, you have called me so many names over the years, while I have never called you any, so please come down from that high horse.
Mark does have a point. Max much less so.
Matthew is correct that it is never appropriate to name call and I have done it to people that do not engage in while others like Max have gotten what they dished out – whether they should or not.
and the real issue IS NOT me or names. It is the UA’s claims about EWR on-time performance (which I will respond to below) and UA’s operational reliability – at all hubs and including all of its operational metrics.
Excluding something that you don’t want to discuss because “your team” does poorly at it is hypocrisy at its worst.
And the height of hypocrisy is all of those that were so quick to throw dirt at DL for its pilot notification and staffing issues – and yet, even though they started in 2025, DL managed to stay at the top of the big 3 in operational reliability metrics for all of 2025.
DL had clear issues in early 2026 but with just 4 months of DOT data, the lead that DL lost has been regained . and all the gloating about how much UA was doing – even if focusing only on on-time and cancellation rates – has dissipated.
and with UA’s operation at ORD and SFO consistently operating much worse than the industry, there will be no return of UA to the top of the big 3.
and, again, it is WN that consistently cancels fewer flights than the big 3but has lower on-time. they also have much less of an operation in NYC and north.
if people want less friction, by all means, stop the name-calling. All of it by everyone.
But most of all, quit hypocritically cherrypicking data to argue how bad “the other side” is and how great your team is.
It was a given that DL would fix its operational problem and a day of 5% cancellations isn’t going to overcome multiple days of that much or more earlier in the month.
further, it is ridiculous to argue that DL hasn’t fixed its staffing problems by citing what Endeavor cancelled because they never had a staffing problem. They do have major operations at NYC, DTW and ATL all of which had thunderstorms that lasted up until midnight.
UA and AA didn’t reset their operations when those same conditions happened in Chicago multiple times earlier this month and it is beyond hypocritical to manage to find the data to argue against DL while pretending you didn’t see the mess that has been Chicago and Texas hubs multiple times already this summer.
Name calling or not, there are some people that really cannot admit that “their time” isn’t as good as they think it is.
It’s lucky for DL that the DOT doesn’t count cancellations (15,457 in 4 mos) as late flights with a 32% higher cancellation rate.
DOT Cancellations/On-time (1/1/26 – 4/30/26)
UA: 2.2%/78.3%
DL: 2.9%/78.4%
rebel
feel free to tell us how much a 0.7% difference in cancellation rate should weigh against last place baggage handling.
You and others desperately want to pretend that your cherrypicked timeframe and exclusion of one metric matters while no one is really convinced otherwise.
In fact, the incessant arguing about who is better for one nanosecond matters to precisely no one other than a few avgeeks and UA’s paid aviation social media participants.
The big picture which everyone else watches the airline industry can figure out is that DL has managed to put everything together better than any other us airline and also has outstrategized its competitors, includuing UA, not just in NYC but across the country.
CF just highlighted once again what I have been saying about LAX which is that DL would have the opportunity to grow LAX and further expand on its domestic leadership.
DL has played the long game in NYC and is not at all finished.
we’re still waiting for you to explain how UA managed to beat DL in 1Q2025 financial performance and then end up $1.6 billion in the hole by the end of the year.
care to explain that?
TD says, “It (EWR) is on par with JFK”
No, it isn’t, EWR is 4% more on=time than JFK with 16% more arrivals in 2026 which is huge especially for a connecting hub like EWR. And as you admitted LGA is even worse. Yikes!
EWR: 76%
JFK: 73%
LGA: 69%
Between more flights at EWR and the JFK transcons to LAX/SFO next year ,UA’s NYC lead will likely grow. Advantage UA in NYC.
if you think even 2% matters to anyone other than the paid internet arguing squad, you are seriously detached from reality.
EWR was WELL BELOW JFK’s on-time for years; for a month or two, EWR is performing COMPARABLY to JFK.
And you still miss that the whole reason why UA is even trying to convince anyone about EWR’s performance is because Kirby wants the flights back that the FAA cut.
add in that NK is gone and had a bigger operation at EWR than LGA and B6 is now cutting and the FAA might very well decide that EWR on-time is improved but it is still not on par with other hubs and certainly not yet on a consistent basis.
and, btw, DOT on-time data applies only to domestic flights.
LGA, not EWR, is the busiest DOMESTIC aircraft in NYC.
JFK is the primary airport for international carriers and handles far more total traffic and flights than either LGA or EWR.
Once again, JFK is the airport that UA foolishly walked away from. It’s position as the busiest and highest revenue airport for NYC didn’t happen overnight – that has been the case for years.
AA, B6 and DL all have a sizeable presence at JFK – but UA does not.
Scott Kirby would drop to last place in system on time in order to get back to JFK but, as the commercial says, there are some things that can’t be bought.
TD, “if you think even 2% matters to anyone other than the paid internet arguing squad, you are seriously detached from reality.”
TD, “JFK and EWR’s performance in on-time is not much different. LGA is the underperformer in NYC and always will be”
TD, “DL’s YTD on-time is back to #2”
DOT On-time (airlines)
DL: 78.4%
UA: 78.3%
DOT On-time (airports)
EWR: 76%
JFK: 73%
LGA: 69%
You’re the best, Matt! Thank you!
Hardworking EWR is gaining momentum… Kudos to the FAA, DOT, and UA!
In summary, while the FAA implemented known flight limits to preserve safety and fix a broken system, the structural reality of EWR means UA got exactly what it wanted. They gained an incredibly punctual hub, a protected monopoly-like status, and the freedom to raise prices, all under the umbrella of federal regulatory mandates.
except EWR IS NOT an incredibly punctual hub.
It is on par with JFK, not some small airport in California, but multiple other hubs operate more reliably than any NYC airport ever can.
And UA simply chose to shift its overscheduling from EWR to ORD while the FAA decided that the operational exceptions which it had used at SFO to increase capacity are no longer permissible according to global standards of safety.
UA already had a near monopoly status at EWR but it was precisely that status that made them think that EWR was enough for NYC and walked away from JFK; none of AA, B6, or DL have been dumb enough to walk away from any airport and then complain they can’t get back in.
DL managed to build a bigger operation at 2 airports and isn’t above 50% at any of them. DL is the largest domestic carrier for NYC’s 3 combined airports which opens up far more credit card and loyalty revenue; as much as some of UA’s fans love to talk about size, UA clearly did not focus on what they needed to in order to maximize revenue and profits.
and the real issue is that the FAA and DOT are using competitive considerations in managing capacity at NYC airports whether they should or not.
it is precisely UA’s near dominance of EWR that is problematic to giving them any more flight times even if EWR is running far better than any other large hub – which it is not and will not.
Oh, c’mon, Tim… Güntürk is the closest thing to objective reality on here, and you’re debating him… sheesh!
Incidentally, it’s a stunning EWR photograph used in the article, showing the magnificent Manhattan skyline in the background…
EWR is 4% more on=time than JFK with 16% more arrivals in 2026 which is huge especially for a connecting hub like EWR.
EWR: 76%
JFK: 73%
LGA: 69%
while you continue to argue and try to prove how great UA is and how bad DL fell, you clearly have lost the plot.
first, UA’s fall in on-time and cancellation rate now is no worse than DL’s fall a couple months ago.
the gap will widen as summer goes on – just as the earnings gap between DL and UA did in 2025; UA start3ed w/ a flash and bang but ended up w/ a $1.6 billion earnings deficit by the end of the year.
quit fixating on data long enough so that you can actually see the big picture; or perhaps, you can see it and refuse to admit it because doing so would realize that UA is not going to win no matter how much you argue about numbres
UA is not and cannot be considered a competitor to the title of best in class operator and marketer until UA AND its regional airlines all post class leading metrics IN EVERY CATEGORY among global legacy carriers.
UA’s baggage handling ratio – no matter how much you want to dismiss it – is a hugely significant metric and UA shows no ability or interest in fixing it. You can’t be a leader by beating your competitor on a nationwide basis by even a tenth of a point in one or two metrics and be bottom of the barrel in one or more others.
EWR is simply not industry leading. It is, at best, in the same ballpark as JFK.
LGA and DCA are operational nightmares and drag down AA and DL’s performance – but they are hugely important domestic airports – and notably, UA has no significant share in either one of them. They are the prefered domestic airports for their regions and the fares and revenue support their existence and continued operations.
and the bigger piece is that UA ruined its own system metrics no matter what it accomplished at EWR because it has to deploy all of its excess capacity someplace.
I said years ago that it would be easier for DL to grow into UA’s top global region – Asia/Pacific – than it would be for UA to grow into the domestic market where it is #4 out of the big 4.
It is not a surprise that UA execs talk incessantlly about taking out ULCCs and AA; their massive growth plan is not working to meaningfully shift their position in the domestic market. The FAA has intervened multiple times. UA is not the largest airline at many of the nation’s preferred coastal airports – BOS, LGA, JFK, DCA, MIA, LAX. SFO and EWR are operationally constrained.
ORD is a shootout that UA can’t win even if it is larger than AA.
DEN used to be a good airport operationally but the competition between F9, UA and WN is so intense that DEN is now regularly well down the list of reliable airports.
IAH is one of UA’s best airports for operations but it is a small domestic market compared to other hubs for UA and other airlines.
IAD is a good airport operationally but DCA siphons off most of the domestic demand.
As much as you want to nitpick over 2 or 3 percent – even in the best months, you miss the bigger picture which is that Kirby committed to a massive growth plan which is not working to move UA’s domestic share out of 4th place.
And as long as UA is in 4th place domestically and is 3rd, 4th or worse at many of the country’s most important gateways, UA will not win the credit card revenue that transforms AA and DL’s networks into much higher performers.
DL already gets the premium transportation revenue but has enormous non-transportation advantages which is why UA will not ever catch DL in earnings – which UA knows. He wouldn’t be incessantly trash talking the domestic competition.
and it is precisely UAs size at EWR – the largest at any highly congested airport – that will cause the DOT and FAA to limit UA’s growth not just at EWR but put it, at best in the position of being forced to compete at JFK against AA, B6 and DL where they will be so small they cannot succeed – no matter how much you or Kirby thinks they can just skim off a little traffic. They tried that shtick years ago and it didn’t work and won’t work now.
UA’s decision to ignore the domestic market to fly sexy international routes has consequences that UA cannot ever overcome no matter how much you argue about a couple percent.
Imagine waking up to a new day and immediately regurgitating 18 paragraphs of the same garbage you said yesterday…
You need a life
The entire article is about on time performance at NYC airports and your entire thesis so far is “it’s not that different” then “it doesn’t matter”. Now you’re trying your usual attempt to pretend the entire conversation was never about NYC airports but about all airports. lol. Of course EWR isn’t beating HNL or… I don’t know… LAX (I assume) in on time performance. But it’s your favorite tactic: Attempt to misdirect and come up with a new topic so you don’t lose face — but again… the topic today is NYC airport operational performance.
Stick to the topic. If you feel you’ve lost in an argument, which is apparent to everyone but yourself, attempting to reframe the conversation to something you enjoy doesn’t change anything. Just shut up and move on vs wasting everyone’s time.
TD says, “quit fixating on data ”
Hilarious.
You see, Tim’s anecdotes ARE data; but, your data is merely an anecdote. Ahh…
If you flipped UA and DL in this: “while you continue to argue and try to prove how great UA is and how bad DL fell, you clearly have lost the plot.” That’s basically what you say every day on all these sites, Tim…
Quit fixating on data you say Spectrum Boy?
The same SB that discusses baggage stats in every article regardless of how non-sequitur it is?
Well again, DL is the most racist airline in America with more Federal EEOC complaints so there is that if you want to keep bringing up random stats…
Facts matter SB
imagine waking up committed to trying to prove someone wrong w/ your typical anecdotal pieces of data that ignore not just the whole picture of data and also the big picture that it tells.
Nobody other than a few pathologically unhealthy paid internet influencers worry about moves in operational data by even a month.
Neither DL or UA are that far a part in on-time or cancellation rates on a system basis. there is a far bigger difference between AA and B6 and either DL and UA.
The fact that you two and others repeatedly think the world is defined by a DL-UA piying match shows how badly you are out of touch.
UA is simply interested in touting how great UA is performing to get back the flights it had to divest. The FAA controls that process and is not near as worried about EWR’s anecedotal on-time improvement – which still trails other hubs on a consistent basis as it is on the NYC competitive situation.
other airlines including DL have not made the strategic mistakes in NYC that UA has – including leaving a major slot controlled airport and overscheduling after the FAA pulled slot controls because of underutilization of slots.
and whether you and others can grasp it or not, the real issue is that UA cannot grow its domestic network in line w/ its growth plan because of how competitive and congested UA’s hub airports are.
Kirby thought he could mow down everyone in UA’s path in order to grow and he is finding that the feds are not willing to sacrifice high fares and consumer harm just so UA can fix its decades long neglect of the domestic market now that Kirby realizes how much UA’s small domestic size is costing it.
you can argue about tiny movements in data but you cannot and will not see the big picture because it clearly shows that UA’s aspirations of grandiosity are not only not rooted in reality but are falling apart in front of your and Kirby’s very eyes.
Topic: NYC Airport on time performance
TD: “Stop fixating on data”
Tim, perhaps if you don’t have the data to continue an argument, you should just stop arguing. That isn’t a very novel concept.
Looking at your response above for a topic that is ENTIRELY on data, you have posted none.
Still trying the whole ‘anecdotal’ thing again, huh? Does that actually ever work on anyone? Sheesh…
TD says, “UA’s domestic share out of 4th place.”
US domestic market share 2016/2025
DL: 16.4%/17.8%, +9%
AA: 17.2%/17.3%, +1%
SW:18.2%/16.9%, -7%
UA: 13.0%/16.6%, +28%
TD says, “UA cannot grow its domestic network in line w/ its growth plan because of how competitive and congested UA’s hub airports are.”
36 brand new UA gates later this year, 2026
IAH: 22 new gates
IAD: 14 new int’l gates
120 new aircraft including 20 787s, XLRs, Coastliners & MAXs.
Amazing how consistently and demonstrably wrong TD is, and it’s just a matter of time.
Where are your 2025 numbers from, Rebel?
I was just looking and I show:
2025 Domestic (US Originating to US Destination flights) ) O&D percents as:
AA: 19.2%
DL: 18.9%
UA: 15.7%
WN: 20.9%
2025 domestic seats in the schedule:
AA 22.5%
DL: 19.8%
UA: 16.4%
WN: 20.9%
2026 domestic seats in the schedule:
AA: 22.5%
DL: 20.1%
UA: 17.5%
WN: 20.8%
Even Across entire networks, not just domestic, in 2026:
AA has 27% more flights than Delta and 15% more seats.
AA has 28% more flights than UA and 22% more seats.
To be fair, United leads in ASMs
UA is 11% bigger in ASMs vs AA
UA is 8% bigger than Delta in ASMs
“Where are your 2025 numbers from, Rebel?”
US Bureau of Transportation Statistics Airline Domestic Market Share
https://www.transtats.bts.gov
Where are your numbers from?
A fun little online tool that Tim hates that I have.
imagine waking up every day hellbent on trying to prove someone wrong and only “succeeding” by manipulating data and the debate so you can “win”
Absolutely nowhere did I say that UA hasn’t made great progress in growing its domestic network.
They were and still are the 4th largest of the big 4 in the domestic arena over the past 10 years. In fact, DL is the winner in moving from #3 to #1 and greatly increasing its profits in the process – which shows where profits really come from.
and the past is not indicative of the future; UA’s capex will skyrocket in the next few years as all these new airplanes and gates will come online and yet competitors wll not be ceding anything to UA in the future. AA and WN’s strategies are delivering better revenue results and they like DL are in a much better size position in the domestic market than UA.
EWR on-time performance was lower than JFK in March. TO no surprise, UA starts yelling how great EWR is – so they can regain the flights that the FAA cut because of overscheduling – and yet EWR is not industry leading in any regard and part of the reason EWR has done better is because of a loss of competitive flights which will continue – precisely why the FAA will be reluctant to give UA more flights.
argue all you want. UA’s future growth will be much more costly and deliver less results.
and EWR is not significantly better in on-time than JFK and the reasons why the FAA might revisit flight capacity at EWR including competitive capacity which will be worse at EWR than at any time in years.
Which Data is Rebel manipulating? You love to say data is manipulated when it doesn’t suit your narrative.
Rebel posted data that simply proved what you said about United’s place in the domestic marketplace and now you’re mad that he’s manipulating.
You also said United has no ability to grow domestically since all its hubs are full…. And he easily posted all the obvious growth opportunities.
Your assumption that United just ordered a TON of planes with no thought where to put them was silly enough to even say, but you said it…
Rebel easily shot that down.
Tell us, Tim. What data is he manipulating?
As usual, I don’t see any counter data from you. What is he wrong about?
TD says, UA’s capex will skyrocket in the next few years”
This is just a continuation of UA’s industry-leading growth/capex over the last decade, and the CFO has stated that UA got such a great deal, that these new aircraft are accretive especially at these fuel prices. Sorry YDDH.
Fleet size 2016/2025:
UA: 737/1,066 +329/45%
AA: 930/1,013 +83/9%
DL: 832/989 +157/19%
TD says, “EWR is not significantly better in on-time than JFK”
Wrong yet again and the trend is not DL’s friend.
On-time in NYC (’24/’25/’26)
EWR: 76.2/70.0/76.3
JFK: 77.0/75.4/73.3
LGA: 78.4/71.8/67.7
It’s just a matter of time.
Tim keeps repeating something…
“Who cares about a small percent difference in cancels”.
Well, let’s turn those percents into real people…
Delta YTD cancel rate 2.9%
UA is 2.2%
Per others, I didn’t validate these personally.
In 2026, in NYC, Delta plans to offer 166,594 flights between LGA & JFK. Delta gauge at these two airports is 126
UA will offer 139,096 Flights at EWR. UA gauge at EWR is 147.4
At those cancel rates and assuming 85% load factor, Delta will cancel flights for about 400 more people per day in NYC or about 133k more cancels vs United in NYC alone.
That said, I don’t think the cancel rate is exclusive to NYC so it’s more aptly applied to the entire network.
Using the same framework across DL and UA networks, Delta will cancel flights for 1.8M more people vs United in 2026 if that difference in cancels remains for the year.
I’m not saying it will stay consistent. Delta has usually been known to do well on cancel rates even though in the past it meant 18 hour delays. But there’s no question Delta’s historical operational heyday halo is quickly evaporating (the halo… I’m not saying they can’t be better but I do think any halo Delta had has quickly evaporated in the last two years)
That said, it is a bit ironic to hear Delta’s biggest cheerleader shout “Who cares about such a small difference in cancel rate?” well… about 1.8M incremental passengers will care that Delta cancelled their flight vs United at current trends.
first, it doesn’t take a whole lot of logic to realize how wrong your extrapolation is – not the least of which is that DL’s gauge at NYC is lower because it uses more RJs – a result of its size at perimeter restricted LGA.
but you still don’t grasp that the trend of UA’s overperformance ended in April. This isn’t the first time that UA overperformed on some metric, you and others gloated about the implications of that overperformance, and then UA failed to deliver anywhere near DL’s levels of performance for the year.
It is precisely what happens when people jump on anecdotal pieces of data and think there is a huge story behind it.
and the bigger piece – which you can’t grasp – is that the competitive story in NYC is not really between DL and UA but between every other airline trying to remain relevant while DL and UA become even stronger relative to the rest of the industry.
As much as some think that touting that UA is winning is all that matters, what REALLY matters is that the feds are stepping in to limit the growth of the big 4 in operationally challenging airports and that will happen in NYC including at EWR.
UA needs to dominate its hubs much more than they do and that is simply not going to happen going forward and that is why UA’s growth plan is not playing out as Kirby hoped.
and EWR does not have a track record of outperforming JFK; it didn’t even happen in March. the FAA even on pure operational data is not going to re-add capacity to EWR based on a couple calm spring months.
The fact that you and others can’t see the big picture but continue to argue cherrypicked datapoints provides the platform for me to highlight that you really don’t understand the industry but are just here to parrot insignificant data that no one cares about outside of a few geeks on the internet and which have no bearing on the overall direction of the industry.
it’s been a while since Matthew has had an article with 100+ replies. Do you think you can help him out – even as you show everyone that you neither understand the industry or are capable of logically arguing against my understanding of the industry.
lol. this was an impressive word jumble to literally say nothing.
I appreciate your new attempt at a NYC narrative though. It’s amusing…
After spending years saying how United was doomed in NYC and Delta would be supreme between the two of them — well, now… your new tune is basically that the battle is just UA and DL vs the world in NYC 😉 Now you get to claim credit for United’s success there!
I appreciate your attempt to change your tune lol. Seems you can realize when you’ve lost an argument to change your narrative.
Tim, I included gauge as a reference so you could do the math yourself 😉
If I simply gave number of flight by airports, you wouldn’t know how that translates to potential passengers flown. You’d need to know the gauge to calculate number of people impacted.
Math shouldn’t be this hard 😉
But as ever… nobody ever understands anything unless tim agrees with it. You are good for a laugh.
Data, Tim. Data. Post it. Use it. You’ll learn something.
And yes, it was an extrapolation to the full year and like I said, the current percents could change. but let’s not pretend that impacting 1.8M more passengers than United with a delta cancellation is a small thing. And even Delta’s CEO has said he doesn’t expect the pilot issue to be fully resolved during the busiest travel time of the year — summer.
But hey… if you want to look at the impact to people in those four months only? I’m game.
~550k MORE passengers on Delta had their flights cancelled in those 4 months than United.
Anecdotally… Delta is leading US airlines in cancellations today… Again…
https://www.flightaware.com/live/cancelled/
https://weather.com/
What’s the reason today?
TD says, “EWR does not have a track record of outperforming JFK”
That’s the whole point of the article. Since the FAA limited its capacity, EWR’s on-time performance leads NYC airports and the trend is not DL’s friend.
On-time in NYC (’24/’25/’26)
EWR: 76.2/70.0/76.3
JFK: 77.0/75.4/73.3
LGA: 78.4/71.8/67.7 (Yikes!)
So Kirby and Matthew are correct and you are wrong. No surprise.
again, you are hellbent on trying to prove me wrong and, in the process, you continue to fail to see the big picture.
UA’s interest in touting how well EWR is doing is to get back the flights the FAA made UA cut because of overscheduling and repeated meltdowns. UA could care less about the specific on-time of any of its hubs other than to try to get back what it could have never lost.
UA simply traded its overscheduling at EWR for overscheduling at ORD and SFO which is why their on-time will not improve.
EWR was not better than JFK in March. UA can argue about how great EWR did in April or May but the FAA is not going to allow anything to be added back until there is a strong track record of overperformance. achieving 3 months and failing in 1 is not consistent overperformance.
and the FAA’s readdition of flights at EWR, esp by UA, will be subject ot the same competitive issues that they are using to limit the growth of the big 3 at LGA.
Whether you understand that principle or not really does not matter.
UA’s growth is limited at EWR and its plans to acquire slots at JFK are directly related to its size in NYC already which you are incapable of admitting is more of a liability if they want to grow as it is an asset.
and you still can’t explain how all of the advantages and size that you love to say UA has do not translate into much higher profits.
TD says, “UA’s growth plan is not playing out as Kirby hoped.”
What are you smoking?
Fleet size 2016/2025:
UA: 737/1,066 +329/45%
AA: 930/1,013 +83/9%
DL: 832/989 +157/19%
US domestic market share 2016/2025
DL: 16.4%/17.8%, +9%
AA: 17.2%/17.3%, +1%
SW:18.2%/16.9%, -7%
UA: 13.0%/16.6%, +28%
Since 2016 after Kirby’s arrival UA grew from 102 to 140 int’l destinations while DL shrank from 105 to 94 int’l destinations. UA overtook DL in the Atlantic and Latin America and is larger in the Pacific than DL & AA combined.
Worldwide destinations 3/20/26
UA: 404
AA: 353
DL: 311
TATL destinations 2016/2025 : UA: 22/42 , DL: 32/34, AA: 21/20
TPAC destinations 2016/2025: UA: 23/32, DL: 15/8 , AA: 8/7
TLAT Destinations 2016/2025: AA: 92/97, UA: 57/66 , DL: 58/52
36 brand new UA gates later this year, 2026
IAH: 22 new gates
IAD: 14 new int’l gates
120 new aircraft including 20 787s, XLRs, Coastliners & MAXs.
you continue to confuse current size and historic growth with the ability to grow in the future, esp. domestically. You have yet to prove that UA can grow domestically.
The mere fact that 3 UA hubs – including EWR – has had growth capped by the FAA is ample evidence of my point.
and UA is still #4 out the big 4 in domestic share. AA and WN are aiming directly at the premium travel that has allowed UA to grow and will make future domestic growth much more difficult for UA.
DL already has the largest domestic share and also has the highest collective market share in its hubs and the greatest abililty to defend and grow it.
and DL is gunning for UA’s TPAC network where it will be far more successful as #2 gunning for #1 than UA as #4 in domestic gunning for any improvement in ranking.
DL figured out that domestic leadership mattered the most and achieved what UA probably never can.
and you still can’t admit how UA can’t turn its #1 size in ASMs into higher profits. and the answer is clearly domestic position.
AA, DL and WN understand what is at stake and are not ceding anything to UA.
Get back w/ us in 3 years and let us know how much domestic growth UA has obtained and at whose expense. The numbers will be slow and proof that UA can’t grow its domestic network enough to challenge AA, DL and WN in the domestic market.
and EWR is no growth for UA and they face an uphjill battle even getting slots at JFK so they can be #4 out of 4 airlines there.
Rebel…
we’ve been over this. The US3 fly more than mainline aircraft. Regionals are a major part of their networks and strategies. 😉
It’s in each 10-k.
But your point is well, taken. While United has removed from Regional aircraft since 2015, the gauge has gone up a lot. UA is definitely growing seats, gauge, and overall fleet.
2015 Seats for Sale / Avg Gauge
AA: 250,946,747; 106.9
DL: 216,404,518; 117.02
UA: 173,858,374; 102.1
2025 Seats for Sale / Avg Gauge
AA: 279,622,212; 123.7
DL: 246,929,442; 137.1
UA: 225,070,368; 129.8
2015 vs 2025 Seats Growth
AA: 11.4%
DL: 14.1%
UA: 29.5%
That is really impressive by UA to increase their seats by that much in that timeframe while also increasing profits.
2015 vs 2025 Seats Growth
AA: 11.4%
DL: 14.1%
UA: 29.5%
Thanks MaxPower. Good stuff which illustrates the point I was making, but your data is far more accurate. Appreciate it.
“It’s in each 10-k.”
I am not finding these numbers in the UAL 10-K. Are these domestic seats/gauge? Do you have a page number from the 2015 UAL 10-K?
https://ir.united.com/static-files/a67469b4-23b5-4da7-97ce-989494da864b
oh. Sorry. My 10-k reference was about regional aircraft in each carrier. You’re correct. My other data is from the other source I mentioned above.
https://ir.united.com/node/33216/html. Page 34 for total fleet count.
https://ir.united.com/node/19621/html P22 for 2015
You could sort of get to gauge with weighted averages but it wouldn’t be completely accurate since some aircraft have a range of seat counts.
https://ir.united.com/node/33106/html On page 11 for 2025, you could use Load Factor and passengers to do some easy math and get to total seats. Like I said, that’s not where I got my data from but you could get it to the same that way.
Also. Pardon my grammar and spelling. It’s pretty atrocious today.
you didn’t whip out that back of the envelope math in mere minutes after my post using publicly available data.
You used industry data sources that are provided by employers to network related employees.
and you still can’t counter that UA has some of the most competitive and also the most restricted growth hubs in the industry; increasing gauge is not going to allow UA to grow revenue enough to cover costs which are growing much faster than costs.
All the growth at IAD and IAH in the world won’t improve UA’s share of premium revenue. not just share but premium revenue.
UA needs carriers to fail in order for UA’s aggressive growth plan to work and the carriers that have the greatest ability to take premium revenue share from UA – not just butts in seats – are AA and WN.
UA’s growth strategy is running into the speed bumps that I said they would encounter even as DL goes after UA’s best strategic advantage – the west coast and TPAC.
whoops… missed 6 of your new paragraphs…
“and you still can’t counter that UA has some of the most competitive and also the most restricted growth hubs in the industry;”
I don’t think I need to, buddy. Rebel already brought up the 36 new gates for UA this year. 😉
If you’re asking if I think United is going to be sending incremental aircraft to EWR or SFO…? No. I don’t 😉 I expect up-gauging, where possible, at those hubs.
Try reading other replies if you’re going to spend your afternoon saying nonsense.
And as usual… you have no data. Don’t even pretend to use data so instead attack others for using fact-based arguments. Aren’t you the one “Paid” to do this kind of thing? I’m certainly not lol
It does bring back a great memory of Matthew’s article on you 😉 Love the Olan Mills photo you chose off a lineup 😉
Thanks.
It is obvious you either don’t understand or choose to ignore business and accounting basics.
UA is growing as fast as feasible and far faster than the competition by purchasing new aircraft at favorable prices/terms while paying down debt (one notch under investment grade), refurbishing older aircraft (United Next 75% complete), adding Starlink (installed on 430 aircraft 30% of flights), improving NPS/service/operational reliability, growing Mileage Plus, setting credit card subscription records while having the 2nd best profitability and market cap of any airline in the world. As the growth slows in 2027 UA is projecting double digit margins even with the new F/A contract and hopefully a new IAM contract (TA covers 32,000 employees including gate/reservation agents, rampers and five other groups).
Your assertions simply are not reality based. Feel free to show us any data to support your preposterous and unsubstantiated opinions.
It doesn’t matter how long Max and rebel continue to use their company provided industry data systems to counter what I say, they continue to fail to address the real issue which is that UA needs to be able to grow THE NUMBER OF FLIGHTS at EWR and in NYC and the on-time performance of EWR is simply not strong enough for long enough to convince the FAA to allow extra flights, esp. by UA.
The same thing is happening to UA on a nationwide basis for domestic growth.
There is no award other than in Max and rebel’s minds for “most improved award but there is no doubt it would go to UA if it did exist.
UA still is #4 out of 4 in the domestic market and has more constraints on growth at its major hubs including EWR, ORD and SFO than any other US airline.
Scott Kirby doesn’t trash talk every other airline except DL because he is insecure – although he is – but because he needs a whole lot more airlines to fail than have in order for UA to be able to grow at the rates of growth UA has committed to.
DL has benefitted more from the collapse of NK and AA and B6′ struggles in NYC and BOS than UA has from any airline.
AA and WN are making huge strides in their need to gain premium revenue and overlap more with UA than DL does.
what happened in the past 10 years for UA is simply not going to be repeated for the next 10 years – and THAT is the problem. Kirby committed to massively expensive growth and the growth rate it had is not only not going to happen for the next 5 years and beyond.
Other airlines have much more growth capacity in their networks than UA does.
DL continues to do the best job of growing its network; even Cranky recognizes that DL has a good opportunity to grow at LAX while UA and AA will be hand tied while DL grows.
and DL will grow over the Pacific, the one region where UA has an advantage which DL clearly intends to challenge.
and your own data shows how well DL has used the past 10 years to grow to the largest domestic position and they are still growing – and are doing it with industry leading profits.
save your relentless attempts to prove how great UA is; UA has yet to come anywhere close to a leadership position in anything other than size. The mere fact that they trail DL in revenue and profits by so much shows that their strategy is not moving what matters.
Kirby can trash talk the competition but it is UA that is strategically most challenged in its ability to grow even as the bills come due for all of the capacity that Kirby thought he could use to run over the competition.
TD says, “UA needs to be able to grow THE NUMBER OF FLIGHTS at EWR and in NYC”
It is still early days for UA up gauging at EWR and those seven daily JFK – LAX/SFO transcon roundtrips are coming next year along with the Coastliners and 20 lie-flat suites vs DL’s 44 recliners. Yikes!
TD says, “UA still is #4 out of 4 in the domestic market and has more constraints on growth at its major hubs including EWR, ORD and SFO than any other US airline.”
Didn’t cover rate of change in your pre-Calc class? Plenty of up gauging coming in EWR, ORD & SFO with 100 A321s & MAXs and 20 787s coming in 2026 alone. Then there are those 36 new gates at IAH & IAD. How many new gates is DL getting this year? LOL.
MaxPower says, “I can’t see a single piece of data referenced”
Facts don’t support his ranting so he must avoid them at all costs.
wow…
by my count… since around noon, TD has written 40 paragraphs in reply to fact/data-based comments. All just a jumble of words, conjecture, and dogma/opinion presented as fact with ZERO backup.
I can’t see a single piece of data referenced other than quoting either me or Rebel. I see a lot of whining about data but none provided — and this from a “financial analyst” that would sooner spend an entire afternoon replying with literally NOTHING to say based on data than just walk away or admit he’s wrong…
Truly astounding, Tim.
Data. Data. Data, Tim. This isn’t hard. If you want to make fact-based arguments, data is a requirement. Your opinions and dogma have been repeatedly shown for what they are — worthless, absent data.
But by all means, keep posting the same old stuff and whining about your lack of data…
Add 6 more paragraphs to that number
Has Tim, or his preferred LLM?
I asked for an overview; here’s what I got…
The Pro-Delta / Anti-United Position
Tim Dunn (LTD): Argues official DOT data shows Delta is securely back in 2nd place for year-to-date on-time performance. He claims United’s Newark (EWR) improvements are minor, its systemwide metrics are dragged down by severe overscheduling at Chicago (ORD) and San Francisco (SFO), and it remains bottom-of-the-barrel in baggage handling. He sees United’s Newark dominance as an anti-competitive monopoly that regulators will eventually cap.
The Pro-United / Anti-Delta Counter-Position
rebel / rebels: Uses year-to-date DOT data to show United actually has a lower cancellation rate (2.2%) than Delta (2.9%), highlighting that Delta suffered 32% more total cancellations and struggles to recover from weather events. Points out that Newark (76% on-time) is significantly beating JFK and LGA.
trkq / trk1: Tracks real-time data, noting that during the week of the post, Delta was suffering hundreds of daily cancellations (over 420 on the weekend) while United held steady around 35.
Andy: Argues that baggage metrics are irrelevant to on-time performance and that Delta is definitively losing the operational battle to United in the congested New York market.
Neutral, Observational, & Moderation Voices
1990: Pleased with Newark’s structural improvements and upcoming 2040 mega-terminal plans; uses humor to poke fun at Tim Dunn’s rigid debate style.
Güntürk Üstün: Praises the FAA and United for giving Newark momentum, noting the current flight caps unintentionally handed United a highly punctual, highly profitable, protected monopoly hub.
MaxPower, Jim LeJeune, Mark, & ATLflier: Criticize Tim Dunn for shifting the goalposts when confronted with New York-specific data, calling out his history of hypocrisy and name-calling. (LeJeune uses highly aggressive personal attacks and off-topic statistics to mock the thread’s data obsession).
Matthew Klint (Moderator): Steps in to ban personal attacks and nicknames, steering the group back toward civil debate.
When I asked an LLM who’s ‘winning’ this debate, it said: The pro-United camp won.
They stayed on-topic: They used local, real-time data directly aligned with the article, proving Newark ($76\%$) was beating JFK (73%) and LGA (69%) that week, while Delta was suffering a 400+ flight meltdown.
The opposition shifted goalposts: The pro-Delta counterargument relied on whataboutism—diverting the conversation to baggage handling, interior hubs, and corporate profitability because Delta was losing the operational battle in New York.
The room policed the thread: Multiple independent commenters actively called out the pro-Delta camp for misdirection and hypocrisy, shifting the community consensus entirely in United’s favor.
you would HARDLY be considered a neutral arbiter and AI isn’t any smarter than the people that feed it data and can’t understand what the real issue is.
UA only cares about on-time at EWR because it wants the flights back that the FAA stripped because of UA’s own overscheduling. If they cared about on-time, they wouldn’t have waited for the FAA to act to fix their on-time problem; UA has long controlled 2/3 of EWR’s flights and could have fixed the operational problems a long time ago. The fact that they just shifted their overscheduling to ORD, an ever larger hub, and sent their system on-time down in the process and ORD to lows that are typical of highly congested airports – which ORD has NOT BEEN – proves they aren’t interested in operational reliability. They want the flights back that they lost.
and that discussion is far bigger than operational reliability whether the UA fan kids want to admit it or not. It is about competitiveness in the NYC market; those kids can’t realize that continuing to argue that UA is the largest is a huge red flag to the feds and consumer groups when UA asks for more access to NYC.
And EWR is simply not significantly more reliable than JFK which is its most direct counterpart. In 1 of 4 months of 2026, JFK beat EWR in on-time.
THOSE ARE the key issues.
Most of the rest of the conversation – which clearly went over your and your AI friend’s head – is about UA’s domestic strategies.
Whether you or rebel or Max grasp it, let alone admit it, UA’s plan that was laid out during covid to dominate the domestic market is not working for many of the reasons laid out above.
The greatest breakthrough in this 2 day long conversation came as Max admitted what I have been saying – UA is not going to grow the number of flights at ORD, EWR or SFO. Given those are UA’s 3 highest revenue hubs, that is a huge hurdle to overcome in order for UA’s growth to continue at the rate UA needs to support its massive growth plan.
Upgauging doesn’t solve all of the problems esp. because UA already gets the local traffic on the segments it operates at decent fares; they said from the beginning that their growth plan was to take high volumes of ULCC competitive traffic to help fill the new capacity. Does your AI friend remember that, let alone do max and rebel?
Upgauging lowers CASM but it also does not grow premium revenue anywhere near the rate of growth in capacity.
and UA is NOT upgauging across the board. They are adding 42 seat RJs – yes, 42 seat RJs and even more 50 seat 2 class RJs. If they were serious about upgauging they would be getting rid of small 2 class RJs, not adding to the fleet they have.
and the real elephant in the room about UA’s growth plan is the massive amount of new aircraft that will be delivered as Boeing finally catches up w/ deliveries.
since max and rebel are in the 10Ks, they should tell us how much UAL has committed to in capex as well as debt service and principal obligations over the next 10 year. Don’t forget capacity purchase agreements – those are all part of the huge RJ fleet that UA really isn’t willing to reduce but rather keeps growing.
UA CANNOT grow its domestic network out of 4th place for many factors and its ability to improve credit card and loyalty revenues are related to having a bigger share of the domestic market.
DL, which has done the best job of improving its position in the domestic market by moving from #3 to #1, has the credit card revenues and also has more growth potential in high value hubs including LAX where it is growing, as I said they would do years ago – at the expense of UA’s position on the west coast.
It doesn’t really matter whether you or your AI engine can keep up with the conversation.
rebel and max have spent two days throwing data at the wall and cannot address the basic issue which is UA’s ability to grow in its key hubs including EWR – which is ALL UA’s concern about EWR on-time – is very limited and far below the huge growth plan it has committed to.
I predicted much of this years ago and love circling back and seeing that things are falling in place exactly as I expected they would.
quoting max “UA will not be adding flights at EWR, ORD or SFO (which happen to be their 3 highest revenue hubs”
the implications of that true statement are what WILL play out in the months and years ahead.
I’m being told the so-called AI-friend says you’re “deflecting.”
“quoting max “UA will not be adding flights at EWR, ORD or SFO (which happen to be their 3 highest revenue hubs””
Awwww Tim…
are you quoting me now as an authoritative source on United network plans? I’m flattered but I’m not one. Just easy to see UA has plenty of gate room to grow in IAH, IAD, and DEN (tons of room at the airport to add gates).
It really is amusing how you seem to view me as some anti-DL guy. I’m not. Delta does a lot of things well. But most enthusiasts seem to be coalescing around the idea that Delta is resting on their laurels and not very innovative. Their TPAC strategy…? I mean, good for them if they are looking to truly rival UA in that part of the world but that is going to be a huge money-loser and it’ll be interesting to see how long that TPAC hubris lasts with their BoD in the next economic downturn.
If memory serves, the new terminal complex at ORD will provide incremental gates if the FAA allows more flights (which it likely will).
Your argument about UA having no ability to grow their domestic footprint seems pretty ignorant when DEN and IAH are the places you’d want to grow your domestic footprint and…. we’ll see but IAD could theoretically be somewhat of a SE hub. It obviously isn’t going to take anyone from LIT to GNV, most likely, like ATL and CLT can do easily but it can definitely take on the BGR/PWM/ERI/SCE to DAB type Florida connections that ATL and CLT do so well.
lol. that’s funny, 1990
TD repeats yet again, “rebel and max have spent two days throwing data at the wall and cannot address the basic issue which is UA’s ability to grow in its key hubs”
Upgauging: 100 new A321s, MAXs & 120 787s being delivered in 2026.
NYC: Seven daily rountrip transcons between JFK – LAX/SFO. EWR: NYC leading 76% on-time + Spirit capacity available. Too expensive for LCCs.
US domestic: 22 new IAH gates & 14 new int’l IAD gates opening this year.
How many new gates is DL adding this year in top 7 GDP metro areas? LOL.
For context, are you all just aviation analysts, or retired industry folks, or just here for the ‘love of the game’?
Matthew has a great article about the most prolific writer amongst us in this comment section — on your very question 😉
rebel refuses to admit that the basic premise of upgauging is that you already carry the premium traffic on that route and are going to increase traffic via lower revenue traffic on a lower CASM.
UA will simply dilute its local revenue but might carry more connecting revenue. EWR is a very high CASM airport – just like LGA and JFK – so it makes little sense to carry domestic traffic through EWR; again, there is no viable plan to increase UA’s domestic presence in NYC.
UA has a very low share of the total BWI/WAS domestic market and their new gates are intended to be used for int’l They are not going to address the the small size of their domestic network at IAD.
IAH is a heavily int’l market – where UA does well – but, again, there is little potential to grow UA’s domestic network shortfall via IAH.
and you do realize that the XLR has fewer seats than the 757? just like with the 42 and 50 seat RJs, UA will be doing lots of downgauging.
We know you lost the plot but it is about revenue and ultimately profits. DL is already the largest domestic carrier in the US and has the same ability to upgauge through much less costly hubs – inclduing than ORD – and also grow capacity at all of their hubs.
and DL will be growing revenue on the west coast and in TPAC.
whether you can admit it or not, UA has no viable plan to get out of the #4 position of 4 airlines in the US domestic market even though they claim to be #1 in overall ASMs. It is inconceivable that UA has no viable plan to get out of the position of #4 of 4 US airlines in the domestic market but it fully explains why UA has been trash talking every other airline except DL. UA needs the competition to die in order for UA to grow.
Whether you or anyone else can grasp that those are the implications of UA’s inability to add flights at EWR or not, that is the reality.
Tim, by nearly all metrics, #4 is clearly Southwest; #3 is American, and it’s a tie for 1st.
the DOT disagrees with you by a wide margin.
we’re not talking about your brand preference. We’re talking about domestic market share based on RPMs.
Even rebel correctly noted the correct data above.
as to your question as to who is here for what reason, it should be clear that rebel and max are here at the behest of their employers. Max continues to whip out Cirium – where he has stated on this site he uses. Cirium is not a tool for novices. It is an expensive industry tool and it is most noteworthy that these two never deny my allegations that they are employed in the industry. because they are. in positions where they are paid to understand network strategies.
And I am here because I have known that the former HP execs supported active and paid employee engagement on aviation social media. That group ran AA and AA’s “fans” were some of the most active and protective up until about 15 years ago. Now those execs are at UA and do the same thing.
They live in a world of denial of reality and push their world of rainbows and candy canes in hopes that the vast majority of readers won’t know the difference.
Some of us know the truth, though.
UA’s growth plan was never viable for the long term. It was driven by low fuel prices and underpaid labor. 2026 ended those things just as AA and WN figured out how to compete. N0te how much share AA and WN lost and DL and UA gained in the decade rebel cites
The difference is that DL seized the opportunity and became the largest domestic carrier with the Amex revenue that goes with being the largest domestic airline in New York City and LA as well as throughout the US.
UA thinks it will keep growing domestic at the rate it did – but that is simply not going to happen.
and that is what the crux of this conversation is about.
It was established early in this conversation that UA’s lead at EWR vs. JFK is not consistent and, at best, was a couple percent – and all 3 NYC airports continue to operate at below average reliability metrics.
and who said that the FAA ever intended to replace the flights it cut? that is just a UA dream.
and finally, every other airline is upgauging. It is beyond incredible that two supposed experts about UA argue that UA will move from 4th place domestic carrier by upgauging alone in its 3 largest hubs when every other airline is also upgauging – and can also add flights to their hubs.
I have had fun and we are almost to 100 replies. Get your AI friend to spew a bit more babble and we should get it over the top.
oh, and airlines should be updating guidance soon, maybe even this week.
I appreciate the context. No more AI, for now. As someone else recently said, it’s hard to take just one lick of that lollipop…
TD says, “the basic premise of upgauging is that you already carry the premium traffic on that route”
So all these airlines following UA’s lead in adding more premium seats are just doing it for fun. Your arguments are so demonstrably clueless it’s astounding.
TD says, “IAH is a heavily int’l market ”
IAH is 76% domestic traffic.
TD says, “you do realize that the XLR has fewer seats than the 757?”
You do realize premium seats generate more revenue and the object to maximize profit. Remember that premium thing airline have been focusing on? Should other airlines follow DL’s lead and park their A321s, remove the engines and install 44 recliners instead of lie-flat beds? Cuckoo!
Is Delta as exposed as B6 with the P&W a220 issue? I mean, from a pax-ex I love the modern aircraft with comfy 2-3 layout. But those engines really messed up.
IAH and IAD cannot alone fix UA’s domestic problem of being too small. IAH is one of UA’s smallest domestic hubs and just adding a bunch more capacity will dilute their own yields.
what is sad is that you try so hard to prove me wrong and yet you clearly don’t know the difference between an upgauge and adding premium seats.
An upgauge is replacing an airplane on a route w/ a plane that holds more seats. A 757 to XLR is a downgauge no matter how much more revenue it carries.
And the laughable reality is that you and your little friend max repeatedly told us that upauging was the way UA would solve its domestic size problem.
EVERY OTHER AIRLINE CAN AND IS UPGAUGING.
Other airlines can and are adding flights to their hubs in addition to upgauging.
UA simply has no viable strategy to get out of 4th place out of 4 US airlines in the domestic market.
begging to the feds to let UA back flights that UA should have never allowed to be cut is precisely why UA’s domestic situation is so bad and not likely to improve esp. more so than AA, DL and WN – which is what it will take for UA to move up in domestic rankings – and get the credit card revenue that UA didn’t bother to realize was so closely related to domestic size.
Which is it? Is IAH too int’l or too small? But Austin is going to be huge. The cognitive dissonance must be excruciating. Sad.
the deflection from stating that upgauging will fix UA’s domestic problem and then confuses upgauging and premium seat counts is deafening.
IAH is not big enough even with IAD to fix UA’s position as the 4th largest domestic carrier.
UA was fixated on growing international while DL used the past 10 years to grow from #3 in domestic RPMs to #1.
DL got the credit card revenues that come from domestic size and DL is larger in NYC and LA domestic where credit card revenues matter.
DL isn’t begging to get back flights that the FAA cut – and neither is AA or B6 – or begging to get back into a NYC airport they left. UA has made one strategic mistake after another including its management of NYC including slots and domestic position – and none of it should have happened if UA really understood the airline business.
But DL showed them how it is done and UA is now trying to copy. UA fled NYC and LAX to DL’s benefit. WN’s overall strategy has not been premium focused but they and AA are fixing what they have which is bad news for UA which, as max admits, can’t add flights in UA’s top 3 hubs.
No other airline faces as dire of an outlook to grow.
UA’s claim about EWR on-time is not only cherrypicking data which won’t move the FAA but it isn’t even consistently true.
UA’s need to beg for the FAA to release flights at EWR highlights precisely the problem which is far more significant than even a 4% on-time advantage – even if it lasted.
it’s been fun friends.
As I always do, I won again.
thanks for playing
Fastest growing domestic operation by far, upgauging, JFK transcons, 36 new gates in two top 7 booming metro areas at airports UA dominates, United Next, Starlink, record Mileage Plus and credit card subscriptions aren’t enough? You wish little fella. If you’re winning I would hate to see what losing looks like.
so, UA is still begging the FAA to let it re-add flights at EWR that should have never been taken away from them if UA had simply managed its EWR operation – which is 2/3 of the airport – on its own to avoid repeated meltdowns.
They have moved on to ORD to overschedule and the FAA slapped UA down there while it also removed the exception at SFO that allowed as many flights to go through that airport.
UA’s 3 highest revenue hubs are no growth in the number of flights and your answer is for UA to upgauge to grow, the same thing everyone else can do and is doing but they can also add flights to their hubs.
UA is still 4th out of the big 4 in the domestic market place and the best you can come up w/ is that UA will gain some gates at IAH and IAD and you think that UA will get out of 4th place by begging to get into JFK even as it touts being largest in NYC. The stupidity hits a fever pitch when UA tells AA that it can’t succeed as #2 at ORD but UA will succeed as a distant #4 at JFK, exactly the same position it was in years ago behind DL, B6 and AA when it left JFK.
In other words, UA still does not have a plan to get itself out of 4th place out of the big 4 in the domestic market
and to add insult to injury, DL is going to grow at LAX, the only really competitive market between DL and UA because DL recognizes, like Cranky Flier, that UA can’t grow LAX – and part of DL’s strategy involves growing TPAC, the one region where UA has an advantage. DL, in fact, boldly says it will challenge UA for the largest carrier title. Since DL used the last 10 years to grow from 3rd place to 1st place in the domestic market, the chances are far greater that DL will succeed at its goal than UA will.
oh, and I said years ago that this is exactly how it would all play out.
DL is winning, as am I.
“oh, and I said years ago that this is exactly how it would all play out.
DL is winning, as am I.”
lol
Bless your heart, honey.
It doesn’t matter, these airlines are all one economic downturn (or worse a Durbin Act) away from them heading back to bankruptcy. There truly isn’t much differentiation in passenger experience between Delta, United, American, and Alaska domestically anyways. They all do a satisfactory job. Being devoted to one airline is really dumb, especially if that devotion is on a blog with no status perks, upgrades, or special customer line.
Oh, Scoot. “There truly isn’t much differentiation in passenger experience between Delta, United…” you just threw gasoline on the fire raging above you…
As for your cynicism, yeah, from a pure profitability perspective, it’s not a great business. That said, the aviation industry is still essential for our modern economy, workers, and consumers. You (and Wall Street) would probably disagree with what I’m about to say, but the solution is better policies that hold airlines accountable for service quality and protect consumer rights, while ensuring the industry remains robust enough to guarantee job security for its workforce and reliable service for the public. (Or, ignore all that, and call just everyone ‘dumb’.)
C’mon 100 posts!!!
Tim, you have OUTDONE yourself in this comment section repeating the same thing and coming up with 100+ paragraphs unrelated to the topic in your usual misdirection attempts…
well done!
yes, we did get to 100 posts.
and you admitted that UA cannot grow the number of flights at EWR, ORD or SFO – but is counting on upgauging to grow but everyone else can do the same thing.
UA is touting on-time at EWR not because is cares about on-time – it just overscheduled ORD which is an even bigger hub and pushed down its ontime – but because UA desperately wants to get back the flights the DOT and FAA forced UA to cancel because of overscheduling.
You might not like to hear it but hopefully the message has been made loud and clear that UA is 4th out of the big 4 in the domestic arena and has done nothing to fix that in 10 years while DL went from #3 to #1 and continues to grow in major competitive markets including LAX.
It is clear that domestic revenue is what matters for credit card partnerships but UA has spent the last 10 years adding summer seasonal narrowbody dots to its route map (using domestic aircraft) instead of growing its domestic network.
now that AA and WN are fixing their premium passenger acquisition problems, it will be much harder for DL or UA to poach premium passengers – but DL is already in first place and is still growing in major competitive markets while UA is limited by the FAA in its 3 largest hubs.
IOW, UA has no plan to get itself out of 4th place while AA, DL and WN will mop up more premium traffic than UA could dream about.
We have had a lovely discussion and I am grateful that Matthew set the ground rules which you and your friend rebel have followed nicely.