70 AVgeeks recently flew to all of seven of United Airlines’ continental USA hubs in one day. Here’s a review from three of the travelers who organized the trip and took part in the journey. With special thanks to Brian Won, the primary author, as well as Carl Brothers (who I wrote about here) and Scott Yep for this excellent report and photos. -Matthew

Review: Flying To All 7 United Airlines Hubs In One Day

The hub run wasn’t our own idea, rather, it was first made big by the inspiring Jeb Brooks, who first visited all seven United Airlines hubs in the continental United States in a single day in September 2021. Not being the only aviation enthusiasts around, we also acknowledge that we are not the only ones to have pulled off a hub run or even specifically a United 7 Hub Run: many came before us, some successful, some not.

To spend 19 hours flying to every single United Airlines hub takes a certain kind of dedication. As ordinary passengers on United– elite status or not– we all paid out of our own pockets for these tickets, be it in cash or award miles– so this is not only a big commitment of time but of money. Still, the appeal of the hub run was such that when Alex Ribenboim and Carl Brothers planned the first one that our group of frequent fliers did a year ago, there was such enthusiasm and FOMO from others that Alex and Carl planned it again for this year, even organizing a Facebook group and website for it.

Doing this last year for the first time, we had no idea what to expect. We’d heard the stories of failure due to weather, mechanical issues, runway delays, and the myriad of ways that a day with six flights between seven different airports can go wrong, as well as the stories of success. As frequent fliers with United Airlines, including (not quite yet at the time) one of United Airlines’ lifetime Global Services members in Carl, many of us attending last year’s hub run had talked to the United employees we’d met on our journeys about it, and while we had absolutely no expectations of support from United, they came through in a big way. Someone spotted decorations at the gate the night before last year’s hub run, and things only got bigger from there. United’s social media team even joined us onboard for every flight, and by any indication we were spectacularly successful.

Over the past six or so months since planning started in earnest for 2026’s hub run, the size of the group grew and grew. At some point we hit 50, then 60, and I think peaked at nearly 70 people, double the size of last year. Life happens so the attendee list rarely gets full attendance, but before 5:00am in the morning on June 6 at Newark Airport, we had a packed gate and a full-on festive atmosphere, highlighted not only by Jon Gooda (VP of Newark Airport for United), but also Jarad Fisher (Vice President at United Airlines and President of MileagePlus) to kick off the hub run.

We were aware that at some point earlier, United had asked for our t-shirt sizes, and when we showed up at gate C105, they greeted us all with an incredible amount of support, from breakfast to t-shirts to a videographer. Along with speeches from Jon and Jarad, United had several employees going with us on the hub run, including Jarad Fisher. We did a massive group photo, caught up with fellow frequent fliers, both old familiar faces as well as new ones to the hub run, and even had a few more surprises, such as finding out that Captain Jarrod, pilot of our first flight of the day, was actually one of our pilots the year before, and he specifically asked to fly today’s UA 504, EWR-IAD.

Just like last year, the first flight of the hub run was smooth and even a bit early. We arrived at Dulles International Airport to even more fanfare than the year before, collected a few more hub runners and said bye to a few who could only make the first leg, and then boarded one of United’s new Airbus A321neo’s for the next leg, UA 1775, IAD-ORD. Captain Alec had also flown us on one of the hub run legs last year, and he was fully prepared for us, including his own trivia game. Not long after the first signs of problems struck, a brake issue that was resolved, then reoccurred as we tried to take off again. Maintenance had us return to the gate, and United swiftly swapped us into a different A321neo one gate over, this one newly equipped with Starlink, and sent us on our way.

Swift, of course, in the aviation world, has different meanings depending on the severity of the problem. This maintenance issue and aircraft swap cost us over two hours delay, which was longer than our entire layover at ORD, and would have cascading effects throughout the entire rest of the hub run. Had United not been all-in on supporting the hub run, we would have failed here, as have so many before us. Instead of a 54 minute layover in Chicago O’Hare per the original schedule, arriving at 9:36am and departing at 10:30am, we arrived to more fanfare just over two hours late at 11:40am. We skipped a repeat of last year’s tunnel photo at ORD and instead got on to UA 723, ORD-IAH, as swiftly as we could, which then departed a little over two hours late, at 12:55pm.

Southern hospitality was on full display in Houston despite our late arrival, as at this point we were losing even more time due to detours around bad weather, arriving at IAH at 3:54pm instead of the scheduled 1:28pm. Instead of sending us on our way as quickly as we could, the IAH team fed us a greatly appreciated meal of box lunches and line dancing, which as last year’s hub runners would appreciate, which would keep us fueled much better than a never-ending stream of the snack boxes served onboard.

The original schedule had us on an Airbus A321neo for three flights in a row, and with the mechanical problems earlier in the day at IAD, United arranged to keep us on the same A321neo, N24542, not only from IAD-ORD and ORD-IAH, but IAH-DEN as well. We made up a little bit of time on the way to Denver, running quickly from gate to gate, pausing long enough for a quick group photo with all the decorations that the Denver hub had setup, then boarded UA 2240 to LAX. Most of us in this group are frequent fliers, mostly part of a Premier 1K/Global Services/Million Miler group on Facebook, and I would say we were very surprised just how fast Captain Beckton got a 737-900ER to climb out of Denver on the way to Los Angeles.

Alex and Carl, based off last year’s experience, had booked what was originally the longest layover of the day at LAX, at just over 2.5 hours. The day’s earlier delays had eaten into all of this layover and more, but at least this let United reduce the delay on the final flight of the day down to a manageable 35 minutes. Instead of running up to the United Club for hot food as many had thought we were going to do, David Terry, managing director for United at LAX, had a full spread setup for us– not just hot food but a live DJ and decorations, to celebrate our arrival. He and Jarad gave some nice celebratory speeches, while Jarad parted ways with us at LAX.

Some of the same flight attendants who’d worked our DEN-LAX stayed with us on LAX-SFO, and UA 2056, our last flight of the day, finally showed everyone’s energy flagging. Things had gotten a bit more quiet on DEN-LAX, but they definitely got more quiet on LAX-SFO. Captain Rob brought us safely to San Francisco International Airport, landing “only” 21 minutes late and to great excitement as the hub run came to a successful completion, complete with medals, photos, and more. FOMO, indeed.

CONCLUSION

Last but not least: pulling off a successful hub run is difficult. This one would not have happened without United’s support, and we know there was much discussion of lessons learned and how to do things better next year. Even more important than that, we fully realize we severely inconvenienced several hundred other passengers with all of the delays, not just from the first flight that developed mechanical issues at Dulles International Airport, but the cascade of delays that resulted. In particular, our delayed arrival at LAX was handled extraordinarily well not only by United’s team and partners at LAX, but by the crew on-board UA 2240. As ordinary paying passengers, we do not truly know what it cost United to delay four other airplanes’ full of passengers after the first one to ensure we had a successful hub run, and to that end, all we can ask is for forgiveness that the schedule and lives of so many were disrupted by the hub run for us.

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