Now merged with Continental, United announced on Thursday that it would add a total of 19 new routes from seven of its eight mainland hubs in 2011.
Here’s the list:
Chicago O’Hare: No new routes.
Cleveland: Cincinnati.
Denver: Amarillo, Texas; Dallas Love Field; Lubbock, Texas.
Houston Bush Intercontinental: Bakersfield, Calif.; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Grand Junction, Colo.; Hobbs, N.M.; Montreal; Palm Springs, Calif.; and Reno.
Los Angeles: Austin.
Newark Liberty: Des Moines.
San Francisco: New Orleans.
Washington Dulles: Louisville, Ky.; Minneapolis/St. Paul; Salt Lake City; Tulsa; and Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands (subject to government approval).
—
A few routes stand out. First, I’m pleased to see United will be starting service to the Cayman Islands from Washington Dulles. Ever since I saw The Firm I’ve wanted to visit, but US Airways’ fares are always too high. With UA at least there will be upgrades and Economy Plus.
Surprisingly, UA has proposed service from Denver to Dallas Love. The Wright Amendment is still in effect until 2014 so it is likely that the route will be served by a CRJ. The Wright Amendment restricts flights from Dallas Love to intra-Texas destinations and to a handful of neighboring states, but doesn’t apply to aircraft that seat less than 56 passengers.
Finally, the Houston to Bakersfiled, CA route puzzles me a bit. I can only speculate this will be on a regional jet, but 3.5 hours is quite a long time to sit on CO Express. I’ve been to Meadows Field before (it’s about two hours from my house in CA) and I’ve never seen any mainline traffic there. If I recall correctly, however, Continental served BFL many years ago. I wish they would have chosen Burbank instead.
Overall, the new routes look good. More options are always appreciated.
There is one more new route I’d like to see: Washington to Havana. But I’ll save that discussion for another post…
So good to see IAD-SLC! I’ve always thought it was a shame to see only DL serve this route. Rumor has it that it will be on an A319, so I may still route through DEN for EQM and upgrades, but it will be very nice to have the option when needed.
-Dan
If memory serves, American flew Bakersfirld-Houston years ago. Both cities are hubs of the oil industry.
I am quite pleased to see DEN-AMA service resume. This used to be an old CO express route before CO pulled its DEN hub.
I would have loved to see BUR on their radar, too. I live 2 miles away, but haven’t flown out of BUR all year… might start doing your BUR-SFO-LAX & vv routing when I can.
@Darren: The folks at BUR are very nice–if you’re ever scheduled out of SNA/ONT/LAX and you’d rather go out of BUR, just stop by and tell them you’d like to do a co-terminal standby. They’ll take care of you! I plan to do that next weekend for my trip up to SFO…
@John: Remember that billboard for Bakersfield Airport that used to be on the right side of I-5 just past Valencia? That’s where I recall seeing a CO logo. I don’t think it would have been AA that flew from BFL-IAH (I think it must have been CO) but I could be wrong!
I’m going WAY back–maybe 20 years or so. They shuttled alot of oil people on those flights.
@John: I did some sleuthing and found that as recent as 2007 Continental served Bakersfield on 50-seat regional jets from Houston.
With the UA fleet now avaialble, a 66-seat CR7 with six first class seats and 60 in economy is planned.
http://www.bakersfield.com/news/local/x1485766469/Flights-to-Houston-returning-to-Meadows-Field
Matt.. do you think that Amarillo and Lubbock could be wright amendment stops for having larger planes service Denver-love field service as they don’t have to wait till 14 to do that…
American never served BFL-IAH. They used to do BFL-DFW but that got scrapped years ago, and long before AA pulled out of BFL entirely. CO had BFL-IAH up until about 2006/2007 when it was originally billed as a “temporary suspension.” Then it just became indefinite. At the time it was served with an Embraer E145 and was also, if I recall correctly, noted as one of the longest flights for that aircraft. There is a major oil connection between the two cities, but I’m glad to see the route come back, and now on a CR7 with ExPlus!
@Lyndon: Besides BFL-DFW, what other routes did they fly? AA Eagle to SFO?
AA Eagle used to fly BFL-SFO and BFL-LAX with the Saabs – but pulled out shortly after 9/11 due to cost cutting. I was born/raised in Bakersfield, and still have family there, but agree with you that would’ve rather seen a presence in BUR as that’s usually my airport of choice when flying home.