United Airlines is cutting service between Philadelphia and Washington Dulles in January. The carrier has also abandoned service to Philadelphia from Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Newark. But United insists it is growing, not shrinking in Philadelphia.
Some background first. I “lived” (at least a few days per week) in Philadelphia for three years completing my law degree. The city never really grew on me and this was during the Great Recession, an era of cheap airfare. What ended up happening, almost every single week, is that I would schedule classes for Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday only so that I could fly home Thursday evening or Friday morning and take a redeye back on Monday night. If you’re wondering how I earned MillionMiler status on United in my mid-20s, it was in large part due to my weekly trips home.
And while I sometimes flew via Chicago and Houston, my routing was almost always the same: Philadelphia to Washington Dulles for the first segment. It’s a short flight, but earned me 500EQM and 1,000RDM as a 1K (at the time) and connecting in Washington Dulles became a happy routine.
I reached out to United about why the Philadelphia to Washington Dulles route is being cancelled and received a fairly rigorous defense of United’s position in Philadelphia.
Our decision to discontinue service between Washington Dulles and Philadelphia is effective after the holiday peak schedule in January 2019. Service between Washington Dulles and Philadelphia was primarily operated with regional jets and as you have seen with our East Coast schedule adjustments, our focus is providing more mainline service between our hubs and a city like Philadelphia, for example. Because of the short distance the route generated very few local passengers and the majority of the connecting traffic was duplicative of some of the other flights we operate and did not meet our financial expectations.
United asserts that it wants to operate more mainline aircraft to Philadelphia and this was not plausible to/from Washington Dulles. When I regularly took this flight, the flight was operated by a small ERJ-145 but is now operated by a mix of ERJ-145, CRJ-200s, and CRJ-700s (larger regional jets with first class and EconomyPlus).
Still, I was curious why cut Washington Dulles when United has made such a point of concentrating connections in Washington Dulles? And why abandon Los Angeles? Even if hub-to-hub, if American can operate up to 10 flights per day between Philadelphia and Los Angeles, can’t United operate at least one?
In response, United was very adamant at underscoring it was not retreating from the Philadelphia market.
Philadelphia continues to be an important destination in United’s route network. We continuously monitor the demand for business and leisure travel in all of the markets we serve and have made some adjustments to help us optimize our Philadelphia schedule and to better respond to customer demand for travel to/from Philadelphia.
Yes, boilerplate language I know.
United: We Are Growing In Philadelphia
But United defended its arguments by pointing to its strengthened service to/from Chicago, Denver, and Houston.
- With the March 2019 schedule, United’s planned capacity at Philadelphia will be higher than the same period the prior year (despite the IAD exit).
- From Denver, United added a third daily round trip in September of this year and will operate it through the end of the year. United will resume normal twice daily pattern after the peak holiday season but with a larger aircraft – resulting in a 20% year over year seat increase in January 2019 because of the larger 737-900 aircraft. United’s third flight between DEN and PHL is scheduled to return in spring 2019.
- From Houston, United will maintain four daily flights this winter instead of reducing to three as in years past. In April 2019, United will increase daily departures to five peak day flights.
- From Chicago, United will operate six round trips to PHL beginning in March 2019. United previously added this flight in the summer but is expanding to also include the spring season.
And by that metric, there is no argument that United is growing in Philadelphia. But take the Florida market, for example. It used to be easy to hop on a United flight to Dulles and quickly connect to Florida. Now going via Chicago is not going to make sense so passengers will have take a train (see below) or endure a much longer overall travel time via Chicago or Houston.
My point is that no one can argue United is abandoning Philadelphia–the numbers prove otherwise. But at the same time, the destinations matter, not just number of seats. I don’t question that United is losing money on IAD-PHL…it’s a rather silly flight for o/d traffic and fares were always too high to justify. But this was a feeder flight and sometimes you take a loss on one flight for greater gains on others.
For example, United was losing money on its premium service flights to/from SFO/LAX and JFK. But giving up those slots was such a mistake because it cost them larger corporate contracts who flew throughout the United network. Why? Because they were unwilling to fly to Newark instead of Kennedy and thus switched to American or Delta. United President Scott Kirby always says it is about the network, the network, the network. Well, if network is so important, United just made it much more difficult for many Philadelphia residents to fly to the U.S. Southeast and even to Europe.
I get why United cut the flight, but I also don’t get it…at least from my position as armchair CEO…
Amtrak Option
Just a final note that United also offers an Amtrak codeshare from Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station (ZFV) to/from Newark. I did use this option several times during my last year in law school and it is not a bad one. Philadelphia residents can still book a United ticket that includes an Amtrak train segment with connection in Newark. It’s not a bad option if you live in Center City or University City.
CONCLUSION
Philadelphia is no New York or Boston, but it is a huge market. United is bulking up service to Chicago, Denver, and Houston and is growing at Philadelphia International in terms of overall seats offered. Still, with service to only three hubs United places many Philadelphia passengers in a difficult position when it comes to staying loyal.
What relevance does United service to Philadelphia have to it being a city that never really grew on you? Why is that important for us to know?
Also, thanks for telling us Philadelphia isn’t New York or Boston … maybe I can clear things up more: it isn’t Atlanta, Detroit or Albuquerque either.
Are you from Philadelphia? Don’t get touchy.
I was also a 1K based in PHL during the recession. I preferred to connect in DEN when it made sense, but occasionally IAD. The agents in PHL were good about looking after 1K’s during irrops and my upgrade percentage was very high.
Maybe I value my time a lot more than those losers on FlyerTalk, but given a choice, I’ll definitely take 17x daily SFO 12x daily LAX of flat beds out of EWR, which is what UA offers at peak days, than a useless 7x SFO 6x LAX out of JFK.
AA’s collapse at JFK is good proof that all the 3-class 321T to LAX ain’t gonna save a junk carrier.
How much does UA pay you again to continually slurp them on these sites…?
There’s also train service – Philadelphia is just an hour from the EWR Amtrak station. United used to (maybe still does) codeshare with Amtrak on those. For international destinations, especially ones not served by AA or others out of PHL (e.g., HKG) I’d far rather take the train and avoid a connection.
Uber from Philly to Newark is usually cheaper than Amtrak, especially if there are 2 or more riders.
I flew SFO-PHL every week for about 9 months when I was consulting. I think the flight was on time about 5 times.
UA just lost all of my business to Florida … 52 round trips per year. See you later, UA, when I fly to LAX. Oops! Can’t do that either. WN to Florida and AS to LAX …. here I come!
Welcome to how I feel in Seattle. UA runs far fewer flights than UA and CO offered separately. In a city that is growing rapidly with lots of international travel. UA dropped international flying, is completely uncompetitive to LAX, flight times to EWR are terrible most of the year, schedule to IAH slashed, ORD and DEN flights inadequate. UA not competing in an important growing market
I flew SEA-ORD and only options were Alaska and Delta as United only had flights at 14:00 and 23:00. I wanted to leave around dinner time. Such a big mistake to not compete in this market.
PHL-based traveler here, recently relocated from PIT.
From PIT, I had to connect regardless of what airline I flew. I often flew UA and did pretty well as a silver/gold elite clearing upgrades, especially out of PIT. Fares were always competitive between the big 3, so I stuck with United until I did a status match last April to Delta and was blown away by the service. Delta upgrades cleared no issue from PIT on most flights, even as a Silver, but I had harder time on hub-to-first-tier-city routes than I did with United. However, pretty much any flight on a CRJ-900 (which I love, to be honest) was in first class.
Now, from PHL, I rarely clear an upgrade on DL except on the new Boston route which few elites know about and proportionately I would guess Boston has less DL elites than Detroit, Atlanta, etc. given the competition in the market whereas other markets don’t really have a choice. Contemplating going back to United, but now that I grown used to the service quality on DL, I find my one-off UA (or, worse yet, AA) flights to be a frustrating contrast.
The more and more the PHL market evolves, the more clear it is becoming that UA/DL aren’t really trying to compete with AA for flyers based here, which for folks like me is a sad reality. No flights to NYC, which is a disappointment for connections that market affords, especially JFK. I’ve done the United flight + Amtrak train option but (a) Amtrak is consistently unreliable and has caused me to miss a number of flights that way and (b) the last thing you feel like doing when you get off a transcon (or, worse yet, international) flight is taking an hourlong train ride home. DL fares just aren’t remotely competitive on a lot of routes. AA $137 direct on a domestic route I need to fly next week where Delta is $1134 with a connection in Atlanta….seriously? A 10-20% premium for Delta is justifyable. Double the fare? Or 9x the fare? Can’t justify…
“I ‘lived’ (at least a few days per week) in Philadelphia for three years completing my law degree. The city never really grew on me and this was during the Great Recession, an era of cheap airfare.”
So…what did you actually DO and experience of Philadelphia outside of law school the three days/week you were there that leads you to throw it under the bus?
I spent 7 days/week the first year there…I have stories that are NSFW. Vile city in many ways.
Have you been back since the Recession? There’s been a ton of development in Philadelphia, especially around Rittenhouse Square. Northen Lib and Fishtown are the areas everyone talks about but only because the development change there is much starker (very bad to hipster) vs Rittenhouse which went from nice to more nice. You’d be surprised if you came back! Of course, LA still has Philly beat on the winters.
I have not been back since 2013.
Why is this controversial? So the airline wants to focus on where it’s best opportunities are in PHL and elsewhere. And perhaps facilitating connections to cheap places in Florida aren’t priorities.
Sometimes you take a short-term loss for a greater long-term gain.
The point of the story is that United will probably lose most of the Philly based east coast business traffic, of which I was one. I frequently had to make day trips throughout the east, between Florida and the Midwest. I could almost always make it a same day RT with a Dulles connection on United. While there are other carriers here, PHL doesn’t offer the flights like IAD does, and my same day travel is no longer possible. My foreseeable travel expenses have changed so much that we shifted our regions, and I ended up trading my Florida customers with the Pacific NW.
What United will lose is my personal travel. My wife and I often traveled on United for vacation, using the points to upgrade paid economy tickets.
Your conclusion is “with service to only three hubs United places many Philadelphia passengers in a difficult position when it comes to staying loyal.” I count four hubs: Chicago–O’Hare, Denver, Houston–Intercontinental, and San Francisco