United Airlines will reduce its Los Angeles and Houston flights to Sydney during the Australian winter.
Citing lower demand during the northern summer season, United will serve Sydney four times weekly from Houston and three times weekly from Los Angeles starting in late March. Daily service from San Francisco will remain unchanged. The LAX and IAH flights will operate on alternate days, meaning there will be two United flights to Sydney seven days per week during the slower travel period.
In a statement, United said:
As we continuously monitor the demand for travel in all of the markets we serve, we have identified periods of lower demand for travel between Sydney and our hubs in Houston and Los Angeles during the northern summer season.
This change will maintain two SYD roundtrips at all times, and will go into effect starting March 29 through October 25, when we intend to resume daily service from Houston and Los Angeles.
787 Goes Domestic + London
The schedule change will free up two 787s. One will operate between LAX and IAH (a second daily 787 flight). Another will operate between IAH and London Heathrow (LHR).
These seasonal adjustments will not impact pilot staffing. From IAH, we will operate the Dreamliner on one of our daily LHR flights, while in LAX we will introduce an additional LAX-IAH flight with the 787. Also, flight attendant staffing will also remain unchanged, as we will backfill with domestic flying at both hubs.
CONCLUSION
I’m not going to lie, my heart always skips a beat when I see a service reduction from LAX. Rather than speculate, I just hope that UA839, the longtime LAX-SYD flight number, is not in jeopardy. United’s LAX to Melbourne flight will continue to operate daily.
If you are affected by these service reductions, you have already been auto-rebooked. Check your itineraries and call United if you don’t like your new schedule to discuss alternate options.
> Read More: How to Make the Most of an Airline Schedule Change
image: United
The downward pressure on economy fares on this route and the silly season fares seen recently mean if these routes were at all relying on economy yields to sustain them it is unsurprising that there is a cut.
Not sure how to reach the author, but a quick correction, in an effort to save the language.
See “If you are effected by these service reductions, you have already been auto-rebooked.”. The word is “affected”.
Thanks Hope. Fixed it.
OMG, what a story. I was on pins & needles while I was reading it. I felt like I was watching a movie. I had a similar situation with American. I am 73 & my husband 81. We were flying from Hong KONG TO LAX. WE FLY THIS ROUTE ABOUT 5 TIMES A YEAR. We fly over 150,000 aa year, they don’t care. Our family of 4 has over 4,000,000
miles with American and have all been executive platinum for over 10 years. they don’t care. Is there any hope for us to have a voice? Please keep us informed, we loved your article.
Indeed they slashed those flights. I found out late last week when I got an email about being re-routed. Unfortunately for me that will result in my missing a connection from LAX, since I’ll be landing in LAX five hours later than before. Really annoying.
BTW, I was searching for award seats between Australia and US and I noticed that United was showing business class award seats, for months and months, esp. on the Sydney to Houston route. Now we know why …