United Airlines will suspend 25 domestic routes next month, including several surprising routes.
United Airlines Will Suspend 25 Domestic Routes In January 2021
Effective January 5, 2021, United will suspend the following domestic routes:
- Chicago (ORD)
- Lehigh County, Pennsylvania (ABE)
- Northwest Florida (ECP)
- El Paso, Texas (ELP)
- Glacier Park (FCA)
- Piedmont Triad (GSO)
- Huntsville (HSV)
- Pensacola (PNS)
- Portland, Maine (PWM)
- Rapid City (RAP)
- Destin (VPS)
- Denver (DEN)
- Greenville-Spartanburg (GSP)
- Lihue(LIH) [ends December 2020]
- Monterey (MRY)
- Newark (EWR)
- Honolulu (HNL)
- Portland, Oregon (PDX)
- Seattle (SEA)
- San Francisco (SFO)
- Boston (BOS)
- Burbank (BUR)
- Washington (IAD)
- Portland (PDX)
- Sacramento (SMF)
- Los Angeles
- Seattle (SEA)
- Boston (BOS)
- Tampa (TPA)
- New York (LGA)
- Palm Beach (PBI)
- Fort Myers (RSW) [ends January 11, 2021]
- Tampa (TPA)
Some of these cancellations are shocking. No flights between San Francisco and Boston? This was a premium transcontinental route up until recently. With the elimination of service, United will go from having up to five flights per day prior to the pandemic to 1-2 flights now, and soon to be zero. United will also suspend service between Newark and Seattle, a route in which it competes with Alaska Airlines on.
In my own backyard, the elimination of San Francisco to Burbank service represents a surrender to Southwest (United will continue to serve Denver from Burbank, but using a 50-seat CRJ regional jet instead of mainline).
Two longhaul Hawaiian routes (Denver to Lihue and Newark to Honolulu) are also on the chopping block. Hawaii’s indecisive quarantine regime continues to push away travelers, but if Newark to Honolulu cannot work, it is questionable whether United’s new Newark to Maui service will be profitable.
Many of these routes will return in the spring…they are not permanent cuts. Nevertheless, they represent the reality of depressed demand that makes some routes United does not even compete on simply unprofitable.
In a statement to Live and Let’s Fly, United pointed to nimbleness in adjusting schedules to match demand that began even before the pandemic:
Throughout the pandemic, United has been a leader in nimbly reshaping and adjusting our domestic and international schedules. The temporary adjustments to the January schedule reflect our continued practice of matching capacity with demand. We will continue to carefully evaluate and analyze demand trends and will adjust our schedules accordingly.
CONCLUSION
I can certainly understand the suspension of service to some smaller markets and Florida leisure routes from non-hubs, but cutting service between Newark and Seattle or San Francisco and Boston appears to be a surrender to Alaska and JetBlue…precisely what CEO Scott Kirby pledged not to do.
image: Steve Lynes
Damn. Those IAD cuts are rough too. Two transcons! Was probably tough to make PDX work when there is service out of DCA but still.
It’s not a surrender to anybody. It’s a realization that there is simply no demand for the flights in what is traditionally a very low demand time of year.
Like every year after holidays schedule change because of demand is lower.
I am not surprised that PDX is cut as destination not so many people wants to visit PDX do to things happening in that city
SEattle to LAX used to fly eight mainline flights per day, and they were ALL full. The continued cuts have happened with the takeover of UAL with continental management. Why they just gave it away is beyond my comprehension! UAL used to be THE Seattle airline.. over 500 departure per day, both internationally and domestically! Now, the entire N Sattelite is booming with Alaska Airline flights, while the new United has a few gates and maybe 30 departures, including the express flights! So sad to see what has come of UAL, not to mention it’s loyal travelers and Seattle based employees. They have been forced to go to other airlines to travel. RIP
Devastating loss for Burbank.
Temporary. Probably making plenty of money with the cargo contracts and vaccine only flights
Matthew, after you just flew JetBlue Mint can you blame UA? I mean who would choose UA over that product? No on in their right mind.
I must agree that the JetBlue soft product is miles ahead of United. That wasn’t the reason for the route cutback.
United treated me very poorly on a trip from Denver to Newark. My younger friend said he hates United and considers it the worst airline.
Um – they’re not leaving the route because of JEtBlue’s mint product. They’er leaving because there’s literally no demand, great product or not. And even before Covid, when JetBlue’s mint product was on the BOS-SFO route, United still was the market share leader and commanded the highest fares in the market.
And you believed Kirby!!! All upper management are liars and cheats. They don’t care about the customers or the employees. All they want is put money in their pockets and the stockholders.
I believe United will be back on these routes. I do find it interesting that United has chosen to cede some routes, even if only on a temporary basis.
I believe it because the DOT quarterly reports of fare/ market position show this to be true. Kirby has nothing to do with it. I also use to work at United in the departments that record p/l so I know how well it did.
@Jason: Indeed, they are not leaving because of MINT. They are leaving because of lack of demand…exactly what I said in my story and you repeated. It is noteworthy, however, that JetBlue (and Alaska) will maintain service between SFO and BOS.
Hmmmmm, it’s called WISDOM and temporarily cutting losses to the company and its stockholders.
Don’t you just love backseat drivers, smh.
Is wisdom, by your definition, what United does? Does United have a perfect track record?
I’d say that the current management team is pretty strong and knows what’s worth keeping versus what truly burns cash with no other redeemable qualities.
I hope you are correct!
Is IAD-HNL still a go? It seems like it’s still on the schedule in February. Strange they’d drop the EWR flight first.
Feb schedules are all fake…they don’t firm up til ~4-5 weeks out these days
Seems true. I have a five flight itinerary in early January that I booked several weeks ago and was just notified that EVERY flight in my itinerary has been changed, I wouldn’t put any stock in what the FEB schedules look like right now.
United had cut IAD-PDX and EWR-PDX in January each of the last 2 years (Pre-Covid 2020 and 2019), and then they brought the flights back in the spring. January and February is low season in Portland.
That is the case for many of these routes. They are scheduled to return in the spring. Hopefully that will be the case.
You guys are acting like this environment is normal. We’re in the second wave of a devastating pandemic. It’s January. Combine the two and these cuts can’t be a surprise to anyone who understands the reality of the industry right now. None of these cuts are an indication of United’s strength or weakness in any particular market. There is NO demand for any airline.
exactly right. The ridiculous comment above that JetBlue’s mint product sent United scurrying is laughable, especially because, despite being in the market for awhile, JetBlue never achieved the share or fare premium in the BOS-SFO market that United has.
So little demand JetBlue and Alaska are continuing daily flights….
If you read the article, you know I made clear that demand is deeply depressed and driving these cutbacks.
But it isn’t wrong to wonder whether even if a specific route, like BOS-SFO, is losing money, what the unintended consequences are beyond that route suspension. Don’t forget the wider ramifications when United left JFK even though it was losing money on LAX/SFO-JFK routes.
They’ll be back when it’s over. It’s not analogous at all to the JFK situation. Despite all the ridiculous stuff that’s been said about JFK, United, according to DOT data, was still the largest carrier of passengers between the NYC area and both LAX and SFO through last year. Did they appeal to everybody? No, but they still got enough pax. And the corporate contracts thing that everybody loves talking about? Having worked in corporate contracting at several US carriers and knowing how those agreements actually worked, it would have been exceedingly rare for any one company to just leave United because of it. Did they redirect some business to other companies? Sure. But few if any walked away completely. The largest buyers of corporate travel – the big consulting firms, law firms, etc, all have corporate contracts with all the airlines. When there are service changes they simply redo the terms of the agreements, changing share requirements. Now that United is going back they’ll simply redo parts of the agreements again, for those interested. SFO-BOS will be back in the spring and the summer, i’m not worried about that at all. And given the absolute dearth of corporate traffic, especially now, United has better things to do than to chase the few passengers a day in the deepest and coldest month of the year for dirt cheap tickets on a route whose demand has been eviscerated.
Great response!
Matthew, curious what you think about the LGA-FL routes…wonder if that was less of a demand failure and more of a spoke-spoke strategy failure. Much has been written about the strong leisure demand to the Sun Belt, even during pandemic times.
I sense that demand, even with rock-bottom fares, did not justify continuing the route. I was thinking about a separate post just on this topic, but I need more info first.
Was actually looking forward to trying one of them to FL to avoid the EWR cess-pool…ah well
I don’t think United has ever actually flown LGA to PBI
The coastal cuts (other than Burbank) are a clear case of “don’t overfly your hubs if there’s weak demand” – send ’em through DEN or ORD instead (or SFO in the case of LAX-SEA). It just makes economic sense. JB and AS don’t have that option – if they want to provide service (including accommodating existing bookings), they have to suck it up on the nonstop loss.
wow ,Lately, Rio de jeneiro has congested hospitals for covid patients and has severely increased the number of deaths and covid cases in Rio de Janeiro. if you become sick with covid in rio de jaeniro you will not receive hospital care
John,
I believe your response to the UA route cancellations may have been misapplied.
The current state of covid-19 care and prevention in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil does not relate in anyway to this discontinued United Airlines domestic US flight notice.
Be well,
JW
Every winter, United cancels the Sacramento-Washington Dulles nonstop. In 2017 due to reconnecting with someone I first knew in sixth grade, I was quite the regular on UA 291 and UA 822. It normally comes back in the spring and runs until after Christmas.
We live in Seattle now and it is much harder to go places on United since they are not a major carrier here (they were in the 1930s when the pioneered the West Coast routes but those days are long gone). To go to London we have to fly first to Chicago, Dulles, Newark or Denver. Why availability doesn’t show travel via San Francisco I’m not sure.
“they were in the 1930s” How long ago was the sixth grade? LOL
They just cut SFO-LHR and a ton of other INTL routes… https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/2029747-no-sfo-lhr-flights-january-2021-a.html
Oh wow. I have a flight to IAD on the 11th which will connect me to an international flight on the 12th.. This is really serious. My whole trip is kinda haywire now with these new changes.