Yesterday, we broke news that United Airlines had authorized its reservations agents to rebook passengers who did not want to fly into Palm Beach International Airport, now called President Donald J. Trump International Airport, to nearby airports at no charge, even if the new itinerary was more expensive. After this story went viral, United backtracked and pulled authorization for agents to reaccommodate passengers at no charge who preferred to fly into Miami or Fort Lauderdale to avoid flying into DJT.
United Airlines Quickly Ends Policy Allowing Free Changes For Passengers Flying Into Donald Trump Airport
A July 8, 2026 memo entitled “West Palm Beach, Florida Airport Name and Code Change” empowered reservation agents to reaccomodate passengers scheduled to fly into Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT) into nearby Fort Lauderdale (FLL) or Miami (MIA).
“If a customer does not want to fly to the airport, use your empowerment to offer acceptable alternatives such as Fort Lauderdale Airport (FLL) or Miami International Airport (MIA).”
The memo even provided a script to use to help calm passengers triggered by the airport name change:
“I understand that you’d rather not fly to this airport anymore. We can look at nearby airports like Fort Lauderdale or Miami instead. Is that an acceptable alternative?”
The memo explicitly authorized agents to process these voluntary changes as an “even exchange” meaning no additional fare would be collected even if the fare into MIA or FLL was higher.
After that memo went viral, United issued a carefully worded statement saying the memo was “poorly worded” and “inaccurate” (without denying its authenticity) and adding:
“United customers are able to make changes to a ticket without a fee for many reasons. However, our policy doesn’t allow for changes because of an airport’s name or three letter code.”
Let’s be clear: the memo was not unclear at all. It may have been written by a lower level manager rather than represent C-Suite policy, but it clearly authorized reservation agents to use their discretion to reaccomodate disgruntled passengers flying into DJT. We are told that the memo, still dated July 8th with the same title, has been updated to remove that language but otherwise left unchanged concerning United’s internal updates for renaming PBI to DJT.
I understand why United decided to quickly end its surprisingly generous policy of accommodating these disgruntled passengers…it was far too generous in the first place and ripe for abuse for those who may have booked into DJT because it was cheaper than used this unpublished policy to move to FLL or MIA. I suspect when United offered its agents this leeway, it did not expect the policy to go viral, especially during a critical period in which United CEO Scott Kirby has carefully cultivated a strong relationship with the Trump administration.
It was neither United Airlines nor the airport itself that renamed PBI to DJT…those who are opposed to the move should take it up with Florida state legislature who made this unprecedented change, the first-ever instance of naming an airport after a President who was still in office. In that sense, United’s policy seemed disproportionate considering it had no control or input over the airport name change.
CONCLUSION
An exception likely intended for a few disgruntled passengers turned into a viral headlines around the world, a recognition of the unique times we are in. United ultimately quickly clarified its policy, ending discretion for agents to make even exchanges if the new fare was higher. All United domestic tickets, with the exception of basic economy, remain flexible so those booked into DJT can still change into MIA or FLL…but any fare difference will now be due.
Customers that call an airline demanding that they be allowed to change airports because of an airport’s name should be assessed an additional fee for wasting customer service’s time.
the more likely outcome was that some lower level manager allowed his/her political persuasino to get involved in UA policy and the memo made its way to the administration (why wouldn’t it – it was extensively covered on multiple aviation social media) and someone at UA got a phone call from someone in DC.
Why is it that UA tries so hard to suck up to this administration and so regularly screws up? I can’t think of another airline in recent memory that has a government relations track record as bad as UA
I actually think United is leveraging this ‘attention-economy’ well. They basically just got a ton of PR based on this controversy. Delta’s is missing out… Quick! Get in on it, Tim! Throw some Biscoffs at it before United’s Stroopwaffles take over!
Those stroopwaffles are bad news; they’re loaded with palm and palm kernel oil ; made very cheaply, and a very un healthy snack.
Oh no… Big Biscoff got to him!
The Curse of Kirby. Another donation might be in order to smooth ruffled feathers.
so the FAA can add IAH and DEN to the list of airports w/ capacity caps?
I trust you noticed on their earnings call that they “blamed” their expected lower capacity for the remainder of the year on the FAA capacity caps at ORD.
I just had dinner w/ a friend last night that said he was in the TSA checkpoint line for 2 hours on a Sunday morning at terminal 1 (UA) at ORD recently and missed his flight.
clearly, not only could the FAA not handle the surge in flights which UA dumped into ORD but neither can TSA.
donations don’t fix stupid. When the government has to repeatedly step in to stop you from harming yourself and everyone else, you have a very wrong view of the world.
I’d still like to know if someone from Washington gave Kirby a call about this memo.
Your friend is a bozo if they waited in a 2 hour line at ORD T1. If TSA is ever more than 15 minutes you just walk over to T2 and clear security there. Its all connected. Or this is made up because a 2 hour line pretty much unheard of at ORD… its not ATL
Also, I trust you noticed that United said they are going to start upgauging many flights at ORD to cope with the flight restrictions. Im sure you’ll bash that plan, but thats exactly the type of move you would laud delta for making
nope. I said all along that they should have used larger planes to add capacity = but that wouldn’t give them the advantage over AA in number of flights.
UA did the same thing at EWR after the FAA put caps on there; why does it take the government to step in and tell a company they can’t do something in order for them to do the thing they should have done from the beginning? Stop clogging US airspace w/ regional jets and then complain about the government’s handling of ATC.
and you also realize that UA committed to a bunch of CRJ 550s and 450s in order to make their planned Chicago expansion work. Now that the FAA is limiting capacity, UA will take a hit on the extra RJs that they can’t use at ORD or send them someplace else – at higher cost since the operating carriers already were told to staff for ORD schedules.
You simply highlight how poorly thought out UA’s ORD plans were and how they not only lost to AA but they are paying the price for their own wreckless expansion plans that everyone knew were not sustainable.
as for my friend, he is not from Chicago and was sent on a business trip. He shouldn’t need a user’s guide to get around TSA backlogs that shouldn’t exist.
and it still speaks poorly about UA’s planning if they thought they could dump a bunch of flights on ORD and expect all of the federal agencies that support UA’s operation to quickly ramp up or result in an inferior customer experience.
In what way did they lose to AA? If you are just saying because they didnt drive AA out of ORD, then good, I’m glad they didn’t.
And I really doubt its going to be that costly to send a few additional CRJ450s to DEN, it hasn’t even started flying them yet
AA clearly ran to the feds (DL and WN might have supported AA) and the feds told UA to knock it off.
Not only did UA not drive AA out of ORD as Kirby and Ko. repeatedly said they would but AA has a higher percentage of its schedule than UA did after the cuts were imposed.
Whether you can admit it or not, Kirby’s ORD strategy is yet another failure that no one w/ half a brain though he could have succeeded at.
and you still can’t grasp that the probem is that a 42 seat RJ in addition to the 50 seaters that UA also has the most of – do nothing but clog the skies. DEN used to be a very reliable airport but many months it is at or below the US average for on-time. Adding a bunch of small regional jets is just as bad for DEN as it is for any other hub.
And let’s be clear that the real reason why UA even has the CRJ450s and 550s is because UA would not acquire a small mainline jet; they had the same scope language as DL. Even with the 717s or A220s, DL gets more than 2X as many passengers on their small mainline aircraft as UA gets on its small “2 cabin” CRJs. DL’s costs to carry the same amount of passengers on their 717s is far lower than UA spends to operate 2 small RJs. 50 seat RJs are the most cost inefficient aircraft in the US carrier fleet – and Kirby doubled down on stupid now that there are no more CRJ700s to convert to 550s so he is turning CRJ200s into 450s.
UA is the only airline that needs to use such small RJs. What have they been doing for the past 50 years of deregulation that they think they need to fly 365 seat 777-200s on domestic routes alongside 42 seat RJs?
UA’s RJ strategy is yet another failure from someone that loves to talk about how much they know about network.
As i have repeatedly said, there are many reasons why UA makes so much less than DL and their small RJ and 777-200A stragegy is just part of the problem
and the point still remains that Kirby has repeatedly flooded its hubs w/ regional jets, got swatted by the feds for overcrowding of airspace and then has to suck up to the administration in order to try to minimize the impact – even though the sucking up hasn’t worked.
Again, why is UA so incapable of running its operation w/o continuous government intervention when other airlines manage to make good decisions that uses national assets well?
I suspect that someone went up to Kirby and said “Hey boss, we have this policy that works really well but it’ll show that you’re not suckling up to the big orange. What do we do?”
Live and learn. Just make sure your next trip doesn’t involve this airport. Let them get the message that way.
If you’re genuinely upset about using an airport with the Orange Idiot’s name on it, then you obviously have serious psychological problems that need urgent assessment and treatment by a licensed professional. Grow TF up.
Why does this sound so much like a reporter who released spoofed or bogus information without verifying it with two sources (as reputable news agencies demand)? I suppose this is one way to print a retraction without admitting poor vetting.
United never denied the authenticity of the original memo, fool. There is no retraction.
Calling your readers fools. Boy oh boy, can’t wait until you get called to the mat.
I pity the fool.
But it was an internal memo that you leaked…….so I’m more curious as to why UA isn’t clamping down on you and the employee for releasing information (that UA didn’t release publicly on its own) that lead to a big raucous?
I won’t speak for UA, but because UA knows I’ve been writing this blog for almost 20 years and am very fair in my reporting and reasonable in my analysis.
And I certainly had no idea it would go so viral – I was just amused that UA was trying to appease people up in arms over the DJT name change.
companies including UAL regularly leak stuff they want the media and bloggers to pick up
some of those same sources that “push” information that benefits the company also share information that the company would rather keep secret.
Matthew is good on this one
“I had no idea it would go viral”……..sure Jan.
You know very well the mere mention of Trump is going to spark a debate. So the notion that somehow posting about a controversial airport name change, that then resulted in an internal memo from UA giving passengers an option to change flights, wouldn’t result in clickbait is comical.
I highly doubt that UA wants to get involved in the politics of anything related to MAGA/Trump/etc…..at least directly.
Tell that to Kirby…
All UA fans (and aviation enthusiasts) can easily remember that Scott Kirby maintains good relations with President Trump, having carefully cultivated a close collaboration with his administration. Analysts and reports from the aviation industry emphasize that Kirby has kept communication channels open and was directly involved with the White House on major aviation initiatives.
For aviation enthusiasts → The UA jet featured in the article appears to be an A319-100. UA currently has 73 A319-100s (average age: 24.5 years) in its fleet.
I don’t care for UA for a variety of reasons, but an airline is an airline typically. What I detest most about UA is Scott Kirby. He’s a weasly little suck up. There’s a line between playing up to any administration, which is required in a job for a federally-regulated industry, and pretending to be BFFs with Biden, then Trump, then Sean Duffy–and having the airline sponsor the Duffy family’s road trip.
I suspect what really happened here was not about customer/airline cash cost. I don’t like President Trump, but I have a good friend in West Palm, and if I want to fly to see her, I am not going to a different airport and renting a car and suffering through all the traffic just because I hate the name of an airport. I doubt that many folks would want to change.
But I think Dear Leader at 1600 PA was very upset his pretend BFF was allowing people to eschew his precious airport. That backlash was probably the real issue. And Scotty doesn’t like when his BFFs get mad.
Who cares. Just fly to palm beach, and as you exit flick a bugger on the wall. Problem solved! Or you can miss the toilet by mistake. Grind poop laden shoes into the carpet. Or just remember as you bob between the old, phosphorescent teeth, the sun damaged skin, the liberal use of the n word. You are in Florida. Naming an airport after a national embarrassment temporarily is not a big deal. The airport will be PBI again after the grifters are gone.