United Airlines will close its 757, 767 ,and 787 pilot base at Los Angeles International Airport. Will United longhaul flights ever return to LAX? Will LAX lose its hub status?
Earlier today I covered job cuts and pilot base closures throughout the system at United. While Washington Dulles took a beating, pilots at Los Angeles were hit the most in terms of overall impact.
While the Boeing 787 will become the “workhorse” of the United longhaul network, LAX will lose its 787 base and United does not predict any 787 service from LAX for “at least” a year. Furthermore, LAX does not have a 777 base and United will also close its 756 (757 + 767) base at LAX as well.
What does that mean for longhaul operations at LAX? Well, unless United suddenly upguages to 777s at LAX flown by SFO pilots, it appears we will not see any longhaul flights for at least a year.
It would be one thing if the pilot base closed and United flew in 787 pilots from Houston or San Francisco to operate longhaul flights from LAX. But United explicitly told pilots the 787 will likely not operate out of LAX for over a year.
> Read More: United Airlines Will Ground 757s, 767-400s For “Foreseeable Future”
The Death Of United’s LAX Hub?
I asked United for clarification and a spokesperson told me:
“We don’t have any additional insights to share on this at the moment.”
And of course that got me thinking…with incoming CEO Scott Kirby saying there are no “sacred cows” when asked if hubs could be sacrificed due to COVID-19, is LAX the first on the chopping block?
Now I can understand why United would serve Sydney and Melbourne only from San Francisco. I also get why United may limit Shanghai service, since it seemed the was the easiest flight in the system to score an upgrade on prior to COVID-19. But what about Tokyo and London? Those are vital links and I doubt United will have much connecting premium traffic when so many other nonstop options are available.
And what about all the routes currently served by 757s? Will those be absorbed by others or shift only to 737s?
Like with so much during this pandemic, facts are still emerging and it likely is too early to tell, though if this is the beginning of the end for LAX, this is a very sad day indeed.
CONCLUSION
It’s not just longhaul service that makes a hub a hub. Connecting traffic is also an important indicator as it number of available seats. But if LAX loses all longhaul services, United becomes an even smaller relic of the past. Since LAX is my home base in the USA, this would hit particularly close to home.
@Matthew — When this finally push you to AA or DL? Yes, I think this is the end for UA at LAX. Now, they will be stuck with foggy SFO for their west coast hub. Not great for them. Now, what will they do with IAD? I am betting IAD remains a hub since it cheaper to operate from IAD than EWR. In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked to see UA cut back at EWR in favor of IAD.
@Gene. Think about it. UA completely owns EWR. It’s a money machine for them. LAX is very very fragmented, with overall low fares. Yes it’s a big market but it’s a money loser for most airline -there’s a reason UA focused on SFO up to this point – it owns it. UA will not, in the long run. leave EWR. It owns it and does very very well there. Dulles will likely stay as it is a wealthy market with lots of high yielding travel. But Newark is Newark and UA owns it. The situation is not comparable at all to LAX.
@ Jason — I said “cut back EWR in favor or IAD” not shut down at EWR. Big difference. I only meant relatively.
If United have corporate contract with london based firms who hate BA then it could be saved, no idea if they do though.
What will UA do about the Polaris lounge?
Keep it closed?
Wow, guess this means EWR – LAX trans-con will go to 737s ?
Not necessarily. You can still fly 787s, 767s, 757s in from EWR or SFO, or any other hub for that matter, and just schedule pilots and route airplanes to maintain a premium transcon product.
Totally agree. Look at London, no UA base, but they fly long haul fleet there
LAX is the UA hub most likely to get cut forever. Just too much competition, segment lengths are long…
IAD is probably second worst positioned, since it’s a true hub, but it will bounce back as traffic increases (which it’s doing every week for the last couple weeks now).
But, wouldn’t shock me in the least to see UA treat LAX as a ‘focus’ city at most in 2021.
Why bother with it ?
UA was once the biggest airline in SEA. With service to NRT, HKG, ANC, HNL, LHR, JFK, YVR. Pre Covid UA was already down to hub only and with poor frequencies. In a fast growing market with good demographics.
That might give you a picture of what could happen in LAX if you UA decides to cede it to others. Even though many*A carriers serve SEA, UA provided little connectivity
@Carl – United hasnt been big in Seattle for a very long time. London was served last in the mid 1990s, JFK around 2002, HKG in the 1980s, and NRT went away a few years ago. People keep bringing up United in Seattle but the reality is that they never really had more than 30 or 40 flights a day maximum, even with all their United Express flying. United chose to put its west coast resources into SFO, which it basically owns, and has grown fantastically. United couldnt be all things to all people before covid, and definitely will need to pick and choose in the coming years when demand is a fractionof what it has been until very recently.
Honestly, United just doesn’t care much about anyplace west of Chicago – and hasn’t for a long, long time. They are an east coast airline. Out west, it’s mostly regional jets flown by small local airlines with “United” painted on their planes. Expect a lot more of this going forward.
I have to call a bit of BS on this. Before the Continental merger, UA was all about the west – LA, SF, Denver, and Chicago plus a weak IAD on the east coast. Only the merger with Continental got them an east coast presence (EWR). If anyone is an east coast airline, it’s DL and AA with ATL and CLT (UA has no real equivalent) plus their smaller coastal hubs. UA is also on record pre-virus saying Denver would be their biggest expansion bet – that it was going to be “their ATL”.
All that was a very, very long time ago, and I stand by my comments: United hasn’t given a rat’s ass about anything west of Chicago for many years. It’s not new.
Up until a few months ago, UA announced DEN would have over 700 flights. I’m sure the timeline has changed but not sure why you’d think nothing west of ORD was prioritized.
Sad day for LAX but the business rationale holds up. But not having a single international flight is embarrassing.
Brutal. I wonder what this means for transcon flying.
Kirby is a disaster. By the way it is now an epidemic
That’s too bad, UA was there to maintain competition for TPAC flights against all of the Asian airlines that provided superior service. Not too many folks would choose UA by default but it kept prices down.
LA is my base as well, and this is sad. Curious about corporate contracts with studios and the entertainment biz as a whole… certain contracts require J travel, and seems like UA is ceding any of that to rivals. I know LAX is tough in that Delta, AA and UA all control the same amount of traffic, but seems shortsighted given it’s the second largest city in the US and #1 airport for O&D. And while they were previously gate deficient, LAX is far superior to SFO in regard to onetime arrivals and departures. Sigh.
I don’t think the hub will disappear, it will just have a downturn until business resumes as normal, which could take a year or two. Southern California is one of the most affluent and populous regions in the nation, this isn’t a repeat of CLE.
I was wondering which one of the major 3 would be the first to give up LAX. Too much competition by international airlines and many domestic airlines having major status there – LAX is tough. I think they are cutting their loses and focusing on SFO and Silicon Valley. Delta and AA now will have less competition so they both will probably keep hub status.
So now it’s three United CEOs that have progressively cut LAX, all from different leadership trees and pedigrees. Kirby even reportedly wanted to build back up at LAX. At some point will we realize how elusive profitability at LAX really is?
When it comes to the LAX cutback: So a lot of consolidation will be happening over the next couple of years as well as culling unprofitable routes/operations that might have been kept for prestige in the past. If you assume AA/OW now has the lead at LAX with the AS alliance, but has fallen to a distant third (fourth?) in NYC, would it make sense for AA to swap the bulk of their LGA operations (-0.8% operating profit margins, ~170 departures/day pre-virus to 45 year-round destinations + 19 seasonal destinations) to UA in exchange for the bulk of UA’s gates/slots at LAX (~142 flights/day pre-virus to 66 destinations)? They would keep existing gates/operations from each airport to their other hubs, of course – so maybe they’re swapping about ~100 flights/day, maybe ~10-12 gates? This consolidates AA profitably at LAX (vs. -0.9% margins now) and gives UA a leg up in NYC, both vs. DL in those markets. For UA, the LGA slots could handle a lot more of the NYC O&D demand so EWR would have room to expand TATL connecting opportunities which – pre-virus – they were trying to shift to IAD because there was so much O&D demand at EWR.
I also think UA sees the writing on the wall at LAX – might as well get some compensation for the inevitable decline. Kinda like sports teams that trade a player under contract they’re about to lose to free agency anyway, so they at least get something before they lose them. And then there’s the old saying, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” – both strike a blow against their leading competitor, DL.
I would also argue that this has a better chance of getting approval under a Trump administration during an airline industry crisis than a potential Biden administration next year.
Thoughts?
Kirby is all about the regionals (175’s in particular) throw a bunch of people on a “mini 737” like that with a United tail and they have brand recognition and cheap jets operating for them in the year or so ahead.
Expect to see a growth of E175’s in LAX in the future while UA keeps their terminal and flights operating but obviously with smaller numbers.
I personally, and I know many others also, love flying on the 175 so doesn’t bother me if we see a growth of those airplanes in LA til things improve enough to get the big jets back.
I think it’s important to note that gates at LAX is an issue. Assuming United scales back LAX, they might sit on those gates as a means of minimizing competitor growth.
But I don’t think this is a United issue. United is just the first to make the move. American was unprofitable at LAX for years. They too will pull back, especially on China mainland flights. Both United at American have the most redundancy at LAX with alternative hubs close by so both have some right sizing to do at LAX for the next few years until traffic returns.
With this news, I wonder what will become of the relatively new Polaris Lounge. Will they keep it open just to serve other Star Alliance flights? I can’t imagine many people make the trek from TBIT to Terminal 7 just for the lounge.