AVENSAB727 wrote:

I was checking Flightradar24 yesterday, and I saw that a 739 operated the mainline UA flight on IAH-CRP. Could this be a up gauge?

The 737s get swapped around quite a bit. It’s normally a -700 but if they didn’t have one available, they can sub in any variant.

airportlover wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

United Airlines has had a lot of growth domestically recently and has recently added numerous new markets out of DEN, ORD, and SFO.

MSN-SFO, ATW-DEN, and ORD-BIS come across as some of the most interesting from their recent entrance.

Besides new routes, mainline service has returned or begun on routes such as Chicago-Duluth, Denver-Sioux Falls, and Newark-Buffalo.

In the competitve marketplace that is the U.S. aviation market, what predictions, insights, and data can you share about the future of United's domestic network?
Will Denver become a superhub like Charlotte for AA or Atlanta for DL?
How is United hampered (or not) by its lack of large 600+ flight hubs like AA and DL have?
Can United grow and regain the marketshare it has lost over the past decade, or will it be consigned to be a niche carrier operating either RJs to most destinations or mainline jets at low frequency compared to competitors?
United has started to grow again at Los Angeles and Washington Dulles, two airports Airliners.net has often rumored are to be cut as hubs. How will they grow from these airports in the future?
Is there a place for the CSeries or CRJ900 in United's fleet?
What new cities will United serve internationally and domestically?
Overall, which new cities, new routes, increased frequencies, and network changes do you expect from UA?.

I do not envision DEN becoming a super hub. If anything, it will be IAH that does. I don't see either of those scenarios occurring.

United is not hampered by its lack of a 600+ flight hub as its hubs serve most of the major cities well, and they provide great connection opportunities. Overall, UA has the best hub network of the big three, even though no hub is an ATL for them.

No, United cannot hope to fully regain the market share, but its focus should not be on that. It should focus on being great for big city business travelers and major international travelers. That's its strength, and it is ok if they only serve small cities with RJs. They really shouldn't worry about that too much as their customers love their route network, and they should capitalize on offering international destinations and intercity frequencies that no one else can.

IAD and LAX will not grow any further. There is no room at LAX, and IAD just does not make sense. IAD should remain how it is or be downsized. They should continue to serve the major international destinations, but I don't know how well they can fill domestic planes from IAD. I'm not too familiar with the LAX situation, so I'm gonna offer a partial answer. They should maintain their operation at LAX and continue to offer solid connections through LAX, versus SFO. Other than that, I'm not sure what else to say about LAX.

Again, not too familiar with the Cseries situation.

I see them adding more Asian cities from SFO and increasing mainline between nonhub major cities and EWR, which bore the brunt of the RJ transition. I mean, ATL was all RJs until June 2017! That's crazy!!! European expansion will remain subdued for now, but I see additions of smaller European cities in the cards, like Prague, Budapest, Krakow, Riga, Moscow, even Graz or St Petersburg or Helsinki from EWR. They really need to grow the European network from EWR. It is already strong, but they are missing a few cities. Also forgot to mention Nice and Malaga. The addition of Porto and Reykjavik is very useful. They are both very popular destinations from New York.

I don't know the last time you've been through IAD BUT! I was there a few weeks ago and IAD was packed!! Packed to the point where United Needs to Overhaul that terminal and update it! I admit LAX is near capacity but there's really no place else to go at the moment. I don't believe for ONE minute that United needs to Pull back from LAX. And your assertion really doesn't hold any water..

SumChristianus wrote:

tphuang wrote:

We have heard AA/DL talking about making cuts with the high fuel prices. AA has done that in ORD already based on the latest OAG. Kirby has been pretty adamant about continuing his growth plan. I personally think he needs to pick and choose where to do it at. ORD and IAH seem to be like good places to do it there given its stronger position and maybe they can push down AA even more in ORD and be as profitable as AA is at DFW with IAH. But with fuel prices where they are and US economy unlikely to sustain its current growth, it can get knocked off the tracks very easily.

So with this week's PSA problems and some AA cuts at ORD is it time for UA to push hard for ORD to gain ground over AA. How about ATW/GRB/DAY/SDF/XNA/COS/FAT/GSO/ATL (more)/CLT (more) mainline and more frequencies to DFW/MIA/PHL/PHX. Or am I talking losses...?

Outside of FAT (recent add), UA has been in those markets. ORD-DFW is all mainline now, ORD-MIA/PHX is a joke on UA (but AA strongholds with tons of seats). Also, UA is gate constrained until the satellite gates open in a few years. In addition, international growth is limited until the new gates in T5 open in a couple of years.

Is there any chance we see UA fly EWR-ICN any time in the near future? The 788, 789, 77E, and 77W all have the range to reach South Korea from the east coast.

CO787EWR wrote:

Is there any chance we see UA fly EWR-ICN any time in the near future? The 788, 789, 77E, and 77W all have the range to reach South Korea from the east coast.

It's a hole in their network for sure. For some reason, even in the CO days and post merger days, both groups have allocated planes and assets to other routes and this one has been passed over numerous years in a row. So, there has to be a reason. As in the past, UA has enough metal coming online to make it happen, they just seem not to. BLR also falls into the same category of one "for sure" that's never happened.

CO787EWR wrote:

Is there any chance we see UA fly EWR-ICN any time in the near future? The 788, 789, 77E, and 77W all have the range to reach South Korea from the east coast.

Would love to see that and IAH-ICN too.

strfyr51 wrote:

airportlover wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

United Airlines has had a lot of growth domestically recently and has recently added numerous new markets out of DEN, ORD, and SFO.

MSN-SFO, ATW-DEN, and ORD-BIS come across as some of the most interesting from their recent entrance.

Besides new routes, mainline service has returned or begun on routes such as Chicago-Duluth, Denver-Sioux Falls, and Newark-Buffalo.

In the competitve marketplace that is the U.S. aviation market, what predictions, insights, and data can you share about the future of United's domestic network?
Will Denver become a superhub like Charlotte for AA or Atlanta for DL?
How is United hampered (or not) by its lack of large 600+ flight hubs like AA and DL have?
Can United grow and regain the marketshare it has lost over the past decade, or will it be consigned to be a niche carrier operating either RJs to most destinations or mainline jets at low frequency compared to competitors?
United has started to grow again at Los Angeles and Washington Dulles, two airports Airliners.net has often rumored are to be cut as hubs. How will they grow from these airports in the future?
Is there a place for the CSeries or CRJ900 in United's fleet?
What new cities will United serve internationally and domestically?
Overall, which new cities, new routes, increased frequencies, and network changes do you expect from UA?.

I do not envision DEN becoming a super hub. If anything, it will be IAH that does. I don't see either of those scenarios occurring.

United is not hampered by its lack of a 600+ flight hub as its hubs serve most of the major cities well, and they provide great connection opportunities. Overall, UA has the best hub network of the big three, even though no hub is an ATL for them.

No, United cannot hope to fully regain the market share, but its focus should not be on that. It should focus on being great for big city business travelers and major international travelers. That's its strength, and it is ok if they only serve small cities with RJs. They really shouldn't worry about that too much as their customers love their route network, and they should capitalize on offering international destinations and intercity frequencies that no one else can.

IAD and LAX will not grow any further. There is no room at LAX, and IAD just does not make sense. IAD should remain how it is or be downsized. They should continue to serve the major international destinations, but I don't know how well they can fill domestic planes from IAD. I'm not too familiar with the LAX situation, so I'm gonna offer a partial answer. They should maintain their operation at LAX and continue to offer solid connections through LAX, versus SFO. Other than that, I'm not sure what else to say about LAX.

Again, not too familiar with the Cseries situation.

I see them adding more Asian cities from SFO and increasing mainline between nonhub major cities and EWR, which bore the brunt of the RJ transition. I mean, ATL was all RJs until June 2017! That's crazy!!! European expansion will remain subdued for now, but I see additions of smaller European cities in the cards, like Prague, Budapest, Krakow, Riga, Moscow, even Graz or St Petersburg or Helsinki from EWR. They really need to grow the European network from EWR. It is already strong, but they are missing a few cities. Also forgot to mention Nice and Malaga. The addition of Porto and Reykjavik is very useful. They are both very popular destinations from New York.

I don't know the last time you've been through IAD BUT! I was there a few weeks ago and IAD was packed!! Packed to the point where United Needs to Overhaul that terminal and update it! I admit LAX is near capacity but there's really no place else to go at the moment. I don't believe for ONE minute that United needs to Pull back from LAX. And your assertion really doesn't hold any water..

UA runs four banks at IAD, and only one of those banks is really maxed out (that's the 4-6pm afternoon departures to Europe bank). Is that when you were there? UA's room to grow at IAD is in the other banks (or to add an additional bank or two to make use of their gate space).

strfyr51 wrote:

airportlover wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

United Airlines has had a lot of growth domestically recently and has recently added numerous new markets out of DEN, ORD, and SFO.

MSN-SFO, ATW-DEN, and ORD-BIS come across as some of the most interesting from their recent entrance.

Besides new routes, mainline service has returned or begun on routes such as Chicago-Duluth, Denver-Sioux Falls, and Newark-Buffalo.

In the competitve marketplace that is the U.S. aviation market, what predictions, insights, and data can you share about the future of United's domestic network?
Will Denver become a superhub like Charlotte for AA or Atlanta for DL?
How is United hampered (or not) by its lack of large 600+ flight hubs like AA and DL have?
Can United grow and regain the marketshare it has lost over the past decade, or will it be consigned to be a niche carrier operating either RJs to most destinations or mainline jets at low frequency compared to competitors?
United has started to grow again at Los Angeles and Washington Dulles, two airports Airliners.net has often rumored are to be cut as hubs. How will they grow from these airports in the future?
Is there a place for the CSeries or CRJ900 in United's fleet?
What new cities will United serve internationally and domestically?
Overall, which new cities, new routes, increased frequencies, and network changes do you expect from UA?.

I do not envision DEN becoming a super hub. If anything, it will be IAH that does. I don't see either of those scenarios occurring.

United is not hampered by its lack of a 600+ flight hub as its hubs serve most of the major cities well, and they provide great connection opportunities. Overall, UA has the best hub network of the big three, even though no hub is an ATL for them.

No, United cannot hope to fully regain the market share, but its focus should not be on that. It should focus on being great for big city business travelers and major international travelers. That's its strength, and it is ok if they only serve small cities with RJs. They really shouldn't worry about that too much as their customers love their route network, and they should capitalize on offering international destinations and intercity frequencies that no one else can.

IAD and LAX will not grow any further. There is no room at LAX, and IAD just does not make sense. IAD should remain how it is or be downsized. They should continue to serve the major international destinations, but I don't know how well they can fill domestic planes from IAD. I'm not too familiar with the LAX situation, so I'm gonna offer a partial answer. They should maintain their operation at LAX and continue to offer solid connections through LAX, versus SFO. Other than that, I'm not sure what else to say about LAX.

Again, not too familiar with the Cseries situation.

I see them adding more Asian cities from SFO and increasing mainline between nonhub major cities and EWR, which bore the brunt of the RJ transition. I mean, ATL was all RJs until June 2017! That's crazy!!! European expansion will remain subdued for now, but I see additions of smaller European cities in the cards, like Prague, Budapest, Krakow, Riga, Moscow, even Graz or St Petersburg or Helsinki from EWR. They really need to grow the European network from EWR. It is already strong, but they are missing a few cities. Also forgot to mention Nice and Malaga. The addition of Porto and Reykjavik is very useful. They are both very popular destinations from New York.

I don't know the last time you've been through IAD BUT! I was there a few weeks ago and IAD was packed!! Packed to the point where United Needs to Overhaul that terminal and update it! I admit LAX is near capacity but there's really no place else to go at the moment. I don't believe for ONE minute that United needs to Pull back from LAX. And your assertion really doesn't hold any water..

IAD is generally "packed" from about 3PM-6PM daily. It's fairly quiet most other times, especially in the winter.

With spare Guam 737 capacity as the 777s return to GUM-NRT for the winter, UA will increase GUM-NGO to 11 weekly from daily effective December 2nd.
Also will operate an additional weekly GUM-KIX flight for 8-weeks during November and December.

New frequency adds for CLE-SFO/LAX/IAH/MCO:

http://www.clevelandairport.com/united- ... do-and-san

SgtBarone wrote:

New frequency adds for CLE-SFO/LAX/IAH/MCO:

http://www.clevelandairport.com/united- ... do-and-san

I'll be honest when the merger first happened I thought UA did need CLE and did the right thing when they de-hubbed it. While I still believe we don't another northern hub we we have EWR, ORD and IAD I think CLE could become a strong focus city for UA focusing more on O&D.
If UA had enough mainline aircraft I think we could run 738/9ER's to all the hubs but then if we had a 100 seater aircraft or enough A319s we could run daily or daily double flights to locations like TPA, SAN, SEA, LAS, FLL, BOS, MSY, AUS, and perhaps a few other U.S. destinations. Then during the winter and spring break season we could run a a few flights seasonally from CLE to locations in Mexico and certain Caribbean Islands.

I feel like UA wasted so much time and money during the early years of this merger that we will never truly catch up to Delta but if we don't change we run the risk of becoming (for lack of a better word) irrelevant. One of the examples I can think of is Amazon v.s. brick and mortar stores, love them or hate them Amazon is the 800 pound guerrilla that has completely changed the way people shop. Here in the U.S. as Amazon has risen we have seen the fall of several brick and mortar stores that have been around for years, stores like Sears that have been around for generations has almost been reduced to rubble. Although I am comparing apples to oranges (the airline industry to brick and mortar stores and Amazon) what I've notice is at first Walmart didn't take Amazon seriously that has changed over the past 5 years or so and now Walmart although not as successful as Amazon they are not on life support unlike Sears and others. Walmart realized there was a shift taking place in the market place and they adapted fairly quickly and some would say that have been successful against Amazon.
I think Delta is do the same thing in reading the market. The have strong hubs but now they are shifting their focus to focus cities and providing customers in mid size cities with options that will allow them to skip one of their hubs on certain routes altogether. Take for instance DL's recently announced RDU-ORD-RDU route, it may be a small change and it may cost customers more money but for DL customers looking to avoid ATL, JFK, DTW, or MSP it might be worth to them to pay a little more for the nonstop. With DL launching more and more point to point routes it sometimes makes be question of the legacy 3 does DL have a better understanding of what the market wants than UA because UA is still so laser focused on hubs, hubs, hubs, while DL seems to be shifting their focus to more focus cities and more point to point where you don't need 10 daily nonstop 2-3 nonstops on a smaller aircraft is more than enough to meet the demand of some of Americas mid size cities.
UA already has the resources in CLE there is so much more we could be doing there while not turning it into a hub I think we are missing out on an opportunity to make CLE a strong focus city and CLE isn't the only city UA could turn into a focus city I think there is opportunity for UA to grow in other cities but we need to start taking action because Delta is showing no signs of slowing down.

jayunited wrote:

SgtBarone wrote:

New frequency adds for CLE-SFO/LAX/IAH/MCO:

http://www.clevelandairport.com/united- ... do-and-san

I'll be honest when the merger first happened I thought UA did need CLE and did the right thing when they de-hubbed it. While I still believe we don't another northern hub we we have EWR, ORD and IAD I think CLE could become a strong focus city for UA focusing more on O&D.
If UA had enough mainline aircraft I think we could run 738/9ER's to all the hubs but then if we had a 100 seater aircraft or enough A319s we could run daily or daily double flights to locations like TPA, SAN, SEA, LAS, FLL, BOS, MSY, AUS, and perhaps a few other U.S. destinations. Then during the winter and spring break season we could run a a few flights seasonally from CLE to locations in Mexico and certain Caribbean Islands.

I feel like UA wasted so much time and money during the early years of this merger that we will never truly catch up to Delta but if we don't change we run the risk of becoming (for lack of a better word) irrelevant. One of the examples I can think of is Amazon v.s. brick and mortar stores, love them or hate them Amazon is the 800 pound guerrilla that has completely changed the way people shop. Here in the U.S. as Amazon has risen we have seen the fall of several brick and mortar stores that have been around for years, stores like Sears that have been around for generations has almost been reduced to rubble. Although I am comparing apples to oranges (the airline industry to brick and mortar stores and Amazon) what I've notice is at first Walmart didn't take Amazon seriously that has changed over the past 5 years or so and now Walmart although not as successful as Amazon they are not on life support unlike Sears and others. Walmart realized there was a shift taking place in the market place and they adapted fairly quickly and some would say that have been successful against Amazon.
I think Delta is do the same thing in reading the market. The have strong hubs but now they are shifting their focus to focus cities and providing customers in mid size cities with options that will allow them to skip one of their hubs on certain routes altogether. Take for instance DL's recently announced RDU-ORD-RDU route, it may be a small change and it may cost customers more money but for DL customers looking to avoid ATL, JFK, DTW, or MSP it might be worth to them to pay a little more for the nonstop. With DL launching more and more point to point routes it sometimes makes be question of the legacy 3 does DL have a better understanding of what the market wants than UA because UA is still so laser focused on hubs, hubs, hubs, while DL seems to be shifting their focus to more focus cities and more point to point where you don't need 10 daily nonstop 2-3 nonstops on a smaller aircraft is more than enough to meet the demand of some of Americas mid size cities.
UA already has the resources in CLE there is so much more we could be doing there while not turning it into a hub I think we are missing out on an opportunity to make CLE a strong focus city and CLE isn't the only city UA could turn into a focus city I think there is opportunity for UA to grow in other cities but we need to start taking action because Delta is showing no signs of slowing down.

I would love to see some of CLE come back. I also think the old UA network from MIA would be more viable now with Latin market share CO brought. The challenge in all these cases is all the ULCC that has filled the gap in the mean time.

jayunited wrote:

SgtBarone wrote:

New frequency adds for CLE-SFO/LAX/IAH/MCO:

http://www.clevelandairport.com/united- ... do-and-san

I'll be honest when the merger first happened I thought UA did need CLE and did the right thing when they de-hubbed it. While I still believe we don't another northern hub we we have EWR, ORD and IAD I think CLE could become a strong focus city for UA focusing more on O&D.
If UA had enough mainline aircraft I think we could run 738/9ER's to all the hubs but then if we had a 100 seater aircraft or enough A319s we could run daily or daily double flights to locations like TPA, SAN, SEA, LAS, FLL, BOS, MSY, AUS, and perhaps a few other U.S. destinations. Then during the winter and spring break season we could run a a few flights seasonally from CLE to locations in Mexico and certain Caribbean Islands.

I feel like UA wasted so much time and money during the early years of this merger that we will never truly catch up to Delta but if we don't change we run the risk of becoming (for lack of a better word) irrelevant. One of the examples I can think of is Amazon v.s. brick and mortar stores, love them or hate them Amazon is the 800 pound guerrilla that has completely changed the way people shop. Here in the U.S. as Amazon has risen we have seen the fall of several brick and mortar stores that have been around for years, stores like Sears that have been around for generations has almost been reduced to rubble. Although I am comparing apples to oranges (the airline industry to brick and mortar stores and Amazon) what I've notice is at first Walmart didn't take Amazon seriously that has changed over the past 5 years or so and now Walmart although not as successful as Amazon they are not on life support unlike Sears and others. Walmart realized there was a shift taking place in the market place and they adapted fairly quickly and some would say that have been successful against Amazon.
I think Delta is do the same thing in reading the market. The have strong hubs but now they are shifting their focus to focus cities and providing customers in mid size cities with options that will allow them to skip one of their hubs on certain routes altogether. Take for instance DL's recently announced RDU-ORD-RDU route, it may be a small change and it may cost customers more money but for DL customers looking to avoid ATL, JFK, DTW, or MSP it might be worth to them to pay a little more for the nonstop. With DL launching more and more point to point routes it sometimes makes be question of the legacy 3 does DL have a better understanding of what the market wants than UA because UA is still so laser focused on hubs, hubs, hubs, while DL seems to be shifting their focus to more focus cities and more point to point where you don't need 10 daily nonstop 2-3 nonstops on a smaller aircraft is more than enough to meet the demand of some of Americas mid size cities.
UA already has the resources in CLE there is so much more we could be doing there while not turning it into a hub I think we are missing out on an opportunity to make CLE a strong focus city and CLE isn't the only city UA could turn into a focus city I think there is opportunity for UA to grow in other cities but we need to start taking action because Delta is showing no signs of slowing down.

Funny I should come across this post considering when I said much of the same thing in the DL RDU-ORD thread I was called out as if I’d been inhaling too much Jet-A fumes.

Many on Wall Street, Industry “experts” as well as UA’s own leadership team have been quoted saying that UA has one of the best hub market portfolios and route network of any major carrier. If this is true, why does UA continue to under perform relative to DL quarter after quarter?

No doubt that UA’s hub markets are all economic and population powerhouses. I think this is actually double edged sword. While their hub markets have large population bases and strong economies those attributes attract a lot of competition that UA must constantly defend against market share erosion, hence the lazer focus. DL on the other hand has quite a few hubs in smaller markets not as susceptible to competition. Don’t get me wrong, MSP, DTW and SLC are all fine cities but they are no CHI, DEN or SFO. Lack of substantial competition has allowed DL the ability over time to grow fortress hubs that arguably dissuade new entrants from growing to a meaningful size. This has given DL the means to look elsewhere for additional opportunities outside their hub network in markets that have a growing population base and thriving economies like AUS, BOS and RDU. I imagine DL can charge a premium out of many of these focus cities by bypassing their hubs to markets with high O&D demand.

My concern as outlined in the other thread which mirrors your post is that UA may miss out on the focus city strategy if they ever decide to go down that path. DL, WN and the other U/LCCs continue to build their presence in the cities with viable focus city potential which will ultimately leave less ideal markets for UA if they were to look to a focus city strategy.

UA leadership has been talking about realizing their full network potential and getting back their natural market share. Seems to me the best way to do that if acquire more planes allowing them to protect their hub markets and start a focus city. While buying second hand 319s and 73Gs is not a bad strategy, it may be too much plane to test the waters with a focus city. Personally I believe the 220(CS100) would be a good aircraft base at a focus city. It has lower capacity than the 319/73G, better fuel economy and impressive range.

77H

77H wrote:

My concern as outlined in the other thread which mirrors your post is that UA may miss out on the focus city strategy if they ever decide to go down that path. DL, WN and the other U/LCCs continue to build their presence in the cities with viable focus city potential which will ultimately leave less ideal markets for UA if they were to look to a focus city strategy.

I think there's definitely a case for UA to keep CLE as some sort of a focus city with good access to the hubs and some P2P. But I agree that there aren't very many other mid-markets where it would make sense for UA to try to build up shorter P2P routes. Most of the mid-markets have already been taken up by DL or WN.

Shoring up the smaller markets and facilitating connections in all directions from UA hubs isn't a bad alternative. UA already has the longest average stage length of the big three, so it makes sense that UA would gravitate toward connecting people across all corners of the country on longer itineraries.

Getting more mainline planes to put back into traditionally mainline markets, putting the RJs back into RJ markets, and plugging all of that into a more efficient operation at the hubs isn't that radical of an idea. As I see it, the only problem is that the new/used mainline aircraft can't come fast enough, and there aren't enough nice big RJs to go around.

77H wrote:

jayunited wrote:

SgtBarone wrote:

New frequency adds for CLE-SFO/LAX/IAH/MCO:

http://www.clevelandairport.com/united- ... do-and-san

I'll be honest when the merger first happened I thought UA did need CLE and did the right thing when they de-hubbed it. While I still believe we don't another northern hub we we have EWR, ORD and IAD I think CLE could become a strong focus city for UA focusing more on O&D.
If UA had enough mainline aircraft I think we could run 738/9ER's to all the hubs but then if we had a 100 seater aircraft or enough A319s we could run daily or daily double flights to locations like TPA, SAN, SEA, LAS, FLL, BOS, MSY, AUS, and perhaps a few other U.S. destinations. Then during the winter and spring break season we could run a a few flights seasonally from CLE to locations in Mexico and certain Caribbean Islands.

I feel like UA wasted so much time and money during the early years of this merger that we will never truly catch up to Delta but if we don't change we run the risk of becoming (for lack of a better word) irrelevant. One of the examples I can think of is Amazon v.s. brick and mortar stores, love them or hate them Amazon is the 800 pound guerrilla that has completely changed the way people shop. Here in the U.S. as Amazon has risen we have seen the fall of several brick and mortar stores that have been around for years, stores like Sears that have been around for generations has almost been reduced to rubble. Although I am comparing apples to oranges (the airline industry to brick and mortar stores and Amazon) what I've notice is at first Walmart didn't take Amazon seriously that has changed over the past 5 years or so and now Walmart although not as successful as Amazon they are not on life support unlike Sears and others. Walmart realized there was a shift taking place in the market place and they adapted fairly quickly and some would say that have been successful against Amazon.
I think Delta is do the same thing in reading the market. The have strong hubs but now they are shifting their focus to focus cities and providing customers in mid size cities with options that will allow them to skip one of their hubs on certain routes altogether. Take for instance DL's recently announced RDU-ORD-RDU route, it may be a small change and it may cost customers more money but for DL customers looking to avoid ATL, JFK, DTW, or MSP it might be worth to them to pay a little more for the nonstop. With DL launching more and more point to point routes it sometimes makes be question of the legacy 3 does DL have a better understanding of what the market wants than UA because UA is still so laser focused on hubs, hubs, hubs, while DL seems to be shifting their focus to more focus cities and more point to point where you don't need 10 daily nonstop 2-3 nonstops on a smaller aircraft is more than enough to meet the demand of some of Americas mid size cities.
UA already has the resources in CLE there is so much more we could be doing there while not turning it into a hub I think we are missing out on an opportunity to make CLE a strong focus city and CLE isn't the only city UA could turn into a focus city I think there is opportunity for UA to grow in other cities but we need to start taking action because Delta is showing no signs of slowing down.

Funny I should come across this post considering when I said much of the same thing in the DL RDU-ORD thread I was called out as if I’d been inhaling too much Jet-A fumes.

Many on Wall Street, Industry “experts” as well as UA’s own leadership team have been quoted saying that UA has one of the best hub market portfolios and route network of any major carrier. If this is true, why does UA continue to under perform relative to DL quarter after quarter?

No doubt that UA’s hub markets are all economic and population powerhouses. I think this is actually double edged sword. While their hub markets have large population bases and strong economies those attributes attract a lot of competition that UA must constantly defend against market share erosion, hence the lazer focus. DL on the other hand has quite a few hubs in smaller markets not as susceptible to competition. Don’t get me wrong, MSP, DTW and SLC are all fine cities but they are no CHI, DEN or SFO. Lack of substantial competition has allowed DL the ability over time to grow fortress hubs that arguably dissuade new entrants from growing to a meaningful size. This has given DL the means to look elsewhere for additional opportunities outside their hub network in markets that have a growing population base and thriving economies like AUS, BOS and RDU. I imagine DL can charge a premium out of many of these focus cities by bypassing their hubs to markets with high O&D demand.

My concern as outlined in the other thread which mirrors your post is that UA may miss out on the focus city strategy if they ever decide to go down that path. DL, WN and the other U/LCCs continue to build their presence in the cities with viable focus city potential which will ultimately leave less ideal markets for UA if they were to look to a focus city strategy.

UA leadership has been talking about realizing their full network potential and getting back their natural market share. Seems to me the best way to do that if acquire more planes allowing them to protect their hub markets and start a focus city. While buying second hand 319s and 73Gs is not a bad strategy, it may be too much plane to test the waters with a focus city. Personally I believe the 220(CS100) would be a good aircraft base at a focus city. It has lower capacity than the 319/73G, better fuel economy and impressive range.

77H

Delta has not been able to charge premium in the new focus cities or hubs its building up. THey are generally tough markets for them. But they make so much money in those fortress hubs that it doesn’t matter. Ua is doing the right thing in strengthening existing hubs. And cle looks like a good place to build up since they have plenty of history there.

jayunited wrote:

SgtBarone wrote:

New frequency adds for CLE-SFO/LAX/IAH/MCO:

http://www.clevelandairport.com/united- ... do-and-san

I'll be honest when the merger first happened I thought UA did need CLE and did the right thing when they de-hubbed it. While I still believe we don't another northern hub we we have EWR, ORD and IAD I think CLE could become a strong focus city for UA focusing more on O&D.
If UA had enough mainline aircraft I think we could run 738/9ER's to all the hubs but then if we had a 100 seater aircraft or enough A319s we could run daily or daily double flights to locations like TPA, SAN, SEA, LAS, FLL, BOS, MSY, AUS, and perhaps a few other U.S. destinations. Then during the winter and spring break season we could run a a few flights seasonally from CLE to locations in Mexico and certain Caribbean Islands.

I feel like UA wasted so much time and money during the early years of this merger that we will never truly catch up to Delta but if we don't change we run the risk of becoming (for lack of a better word) irrelevant. One of the examples I can think of is Amazon v.s. brick and mortar stores, love them or hate them Amazon is the 800 pound guerrilla that has completely changed the way people shop. Here in the U.S. as Amazon has risen we have seen the fall of several brick and mortar stores that have been around for years, stores like Sears that have been around for generations has almost been reduced to rubble. Although I am comparing apples to oranges (the airline industry to brick and mortar stores and Amazon) what I've notice is at first Walmart didn't take Amazon seriously that has changed over the past 5 years or so and now Walmart although not as successful as Amazon they are not on life support unlike Sears and others. Walmart realized there was a shift taking place in the market place and they adapted fairly quickly and some would say that have been successful against Amazon.
I think Delta is do the same thing in reading the market. The have strong hubs but now they are shifting their focus to focus cities and providing customers in mid size cities with options that will allow them to skip one of their hubs on certain routes altogether. Take for instance DL's recently announced RDU-ORD-RDU route, it may be a small change and it may cost customers more money but for DL customers looking to avoid ATL, JFK, DTW, or MSP it might be worth to them to pay a little more for the nonstop. With DL launching more and more point to point routes it sometimes makes be question of the legacy 3 does DL have a better understanding of what the market wants than UA because UA is still so laser focused on hubs, hubs, hubs, while DL seems to be shifting their focus to more focus cities and more point to point where you don't need 10 daily nonstop 2-3 nonstops on a smaller aircraft is more than enough to meet the demand of some of Americas mid size cities.
UA already has the resources in CLE there is so much more we could be doing there while not turning it into a hub I think we are missing out on an opportunity to make CLE a strong focus city and CLE isn't the only city UA could turn into a focus city I think there is opportunity for UA to grow in other cities but we need to start taking action because Delta is showing no signs of slowing down.

Every flight from CLE that's a leisure local play takes away from an added frequency to a business market at another hub, or another connecting point, thus BUILDING the network. This is where UA has and continues to struggle.

This added CLE stuff does little for the network, and while it's ostensibly profitable, the opportunity cost of doing these sort of trips in CLE perplexes me.

With the recent UA order for 70 seat! E175s, does UA have a plan for airports like ASE, which apparently can handle nothing larger than a CR7?

CLE-SFO can be construed as building the SFO hub and IND has near year-round twice daily service to SFO already. CLE-LAX seems like 2x daily is too much, so I concede that one, but CLE-MCO, with a second daily flight only on Saturdays uses aircraft time that would otherwise be wasted due to the Saturday drawdowns in service (near) network wide.

Also this week, MRY-DEN was announced as a 2x daily CR2 flight. STS/LGB/ACV/FMG/FLG/YUM/CHS/BUF-DEN still seem like good spokes for DEN to add, with the rebanking of DEN set to begin in February 2019.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/f ... 796251002/
Seems like they rebanked DEN back in 2014/2015, so I hope they go for something bigger and more agressive this time.
For example:
Westbound banks: 8am/10am/12pm/3pm/7pm/10pm
Eastbound banks: 8am/10am/12pm/3pm/7pm/8-11pm
Perhaps even LAX/SFO/SEA-DEN and DEN-ORD/IAH redeyes.

Also with B6 dumping their E190s, no A220 order for UA at Farnborough, and a focus on "used aircraft opportunities", how about if UA picks up B6's 60 E190s. This, as a new small narrowbody type (for UA) allows a scope increase of 40? 76 seat regional jets and would allow UA to finally resume drawdowns of its CR2/E145 fleets.

What is the last date that UA's schedule is set?

727LOVER wrote:

What is the last date that UA's schedule is set?

If you mean set as in "this is exactly what's going to be flown," ~30 in the future. If you mean set as in "something's published," 337 days in the future.

adamblang wrote:

727LOVER wrote:

What is the last date that UA's schedule is set?

If you mean set as in "this is exactly what's going to be flown," ~30 in the future. If you mean set as in "something's published," 337 days in the future.

International flying with a few exceptions is mostly set through 12/19. Domestic is through the last few days of October.

Per crew note, plan for 787-10 EWR fleet is to operate 6 Atlantic markets for summer 2019. Routes to be loaded in coming weeks.
Also with improvement in Guam, planning additional Japan flying starting April.

LAXintl wrote:

Per crew note, plan for 787-10 EWR fleet is to operate 6 Atlantic markets for summer 2019. Routes to be loaded in coming weeks.
Also with improvement in Guam, planning additional Japan flying starting April.

I'm going to guess that DUB, BCN and MAD would be three of those six. Those were operated by the domestic 772s this past Summer, going to the 78J would allow those 772s to return to domestic / Hawaii / Guam service. As for the other three, perhaps CDG, MXP and FCO?

STT757 wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

Per crew note, plan for 787-10 EWR fleet is to operate 6 Atlantic markets for summer 2019. Routes to be loaded in coming weeks.
Also with improvement in Guam, planning additional Japan flying starting April.

I'm going to guess that DUB, BCN and MAD would be three of those six. Those were operated by the domestic 772s this past Summer, going to the 78J would allow those 772s to return to domestic / Hawaii / Guam service. As for the other three, perhaps CDG, MXP and FCO?

FRA and MUC I'd say for sure due to volume.

fun2fly wrote:

STT757 wrote:

LAXintl wrote:

Per crew note, plan for 787-10 EWR fleet is to operate 6 Atlantic markets for summer 2019. Routes to be loaded in coming weeks.
Also with improvement in Guam, planning additional Japan flying starting April.

I'm going to guess that DUB, BCN and MAD would be three of those six. Those were operated by the domestic 772s this past Summer, going to the 78J would allow those 772s to return to domestic / Hawaii / Guam service. As for the other three, perhaps CDG, MXP and FCO?

FRA and MUC I'd say for sure due to volume.

I disagree I think FRA will once again be upguaged to the 77W for the summer season because the 787-10 doesn't have enough "J" seats to satisfy demand from May through August. As far as MUC it is quite a leap from a 763 to a 787-10 and ever since UA placed the 763 on this route they have never upguaged the route to a 764 or a 777. If anything I would say EWR-MUC would go 764.
I know earlier in this and other threads I thought the domestic 772's would make another appearance next summer on EWR-DUB/BCN/MAD routes just because during the height of the summer travel season UA was filling up almost all seats on these flights. Now I'm rethinking that position and I think STT757 is correct, although the 787-10 will not have as many seats as the domes 772s it will have enough seats to satisfy demand. For that reason I think the 787-10 will probably be used on DUB, MAD, and BCN. I would also throw in FCO, MXP, like STT757 did but instead of CDG I'm thinking VCE. I think the 77E will fly CDG for the summer and VCE which has seen high load factors could utilize the 787-10 especially if UA still has no plans to start flying to VCE from either IAD or ORD.

jayunited wrote:

fun2fly wrote:

STT757 wrote:

I'm going to guess that DUB, BCN and MAD would be three of those six. Those were operated by the domestic 772s this past Summer, going to the 78J would allow those 772s to return to domestic / Hawaii / Guam service. As for the other three, perhaps CDG, MXP and FCO?

FRA and MUC I'd say for sure due to volume.

I disagree I think FRA will once again be upguaged to the 77W for the summer season because the 787-10 doesn't have enough "J" seats to satisfy demand from May through August. As far as MUC it is quite a leap from a 763 to a 787-10 and ever since UA placed the 763 on this route they have never upguaged the route to a 764 or a 777. If anything I would say EWR-MUC would go 764.
I know earlier in this and other threads I thought the domestic 772's would make another appearance next summer on EWR-DUB/BCN/MAD routes just because during the height of the summer travel season UA was filling up almost all seats on these flights. Now I'm rethinking that position and I think STT757 is correct, although the 787-10 will not have as many seats as the domes 772s it will have enough seats to satisfy demand. For that reason I think the 787-10 will probably be used on DUB, MAD, and BCN. I would also throw in FCO, MXP, like STT757 did but instead of CDG I'm thinking VCE. I think the 77E will fly CDG for the summer and VCE which has seen high load factors could utilize the 787-10 especially if UA still has no plans to start flying to VCE from either IAD or ORD.

Good points. The other thing we are all assuming is that the Polaris 763's will be on the LHR route. If not, I can see one of the 78J's on at least one route.

fun2fly wrote:

Good points. The other thing we are all assuming is that the Polaris 763's will be on the LHR route. If not, I can see one of the 78J's on at least one route.

Well according to the internal memo that I've seen if the delivery schedule holds UA expects to have 9 787-10 frames in the fleet. The beauty of utilizing these aircraft on EWR-Europe routes means UA should have 3 spares, I don't think UA needs 3 spares on the ground one perhaps 2 spares is enough so that still leaves 1 frame so if the delivery schedule holds we might see 7 EWR-Europe upguaged to the 787-10 but for now UA will only say 6 routes. Again its better to be conservative and say 6 routes this way if the schedule slips passengers won't be disappointed seeing a domestic 772 at the gate when they were expecting a 787-10.

jayunited wrote:

fun2fly wrote:

Good points. The other thing we are all assuming is that the Polaris 763's will be on the LHR route. If not, I can see one of the 78J's on at least one route.

Well according to the internal memo that I've seen if the delivery schedule holds UA expects to have 9 787-10 frames in the fleet. The beauty of utilizing these aircraft on EWR-Europe routes means UA should have 3 spares, I don't think UA needs 3 spares on the ground one perhaps 2 spares is enough so that still leaves 1 frame so if the delivery schedule holds we might see 7 EWR-Europe upguaged to the 787-10 but for now UA will only say 6 routes. Again its better to be conservative and say 6 routes this way if the schedule slips passengers won't be disappointed seeing a domestic 772 at the gate when they were expecting a 787-10.

If you read the thepointsguy.com article, he states that UA will have 6 TATL routes from EWR on the 787, not the 78J. That could mean 788/789's as he notes. I bet UA is playing it safe after the 77W delays.

With only 14 officially on order, and 9 being delivered by April or so, that only leaves 5 more 78J's and 4 more 789's officially (rumored 11 more 78J's). Perhaps they wrap the top up order with the 763 replacement order?

fun2fly wrote:

jayunited wrote:

fun2fly wrote:

Good points. The other thing we are all assuming is that the Polaris 763's will be on the LHR route. If not, I can see one of the 78J's on at least one route.

Well according to the internal memo that I've seen if the delivery schedule holds UA expects to have 9 787-10 frames in the fleet. The beauty of utilizing these aircraft on EWR-Europe routes means UA should have 3 spares, I don't think UA needs 3 spares on the ground one perhaps 2 spares is enough so that still leaves 1 frame so if the delivery schedule holds we might see 7 EWR-Europe upguaged to the 787-10 but for now UA will only say 6 routes. Again its better to be conservative and say 6 routes this way if the schedule slips passengers won't be disappointed seeing a domestic 772 at the gate when they were expecting a 787-10.

If you read the thepointsguy.com article, he states that UA will have 6 TATL routes from EWR on the 787, not the 78J. That could mean 788/789's as he notes. I bet UA is playing it safe after the 77W delays.

With only 14 officially on order, and 9 being delivered by April or so, that only leaves 5 more 78J's and 4 more 789's officially (rumored 11 more 78J's). Perhaps they wrap the top up order with the 763 replacement order?

TPG article is incorrect. It will be 78Js flying those 6 EWR-TATL markets not 788/789

fun2fly wrote:

If you read the thepointsguy.com article, he states that UA will have 6 TATL routes from EWR on the 787, not the 78J. That could mean 788/789's as he notes. I bet UA is playing it safe after the 77W delays.

With only 14 officially on order, and 9 being delivered by April or so, that only leaves 5 more 78J's and 4 more 789's officially (rumored 11 more 78J's). Perhaps they wrap the top up order with the 763 replacement order?

The points guys doesn't work for United, and I can say for sure there will not be any United 789's flying regularly scheduled service from EWR in 2019. If Boeing's delivery schedule holds United will have 9 78J frames in the fleet by the end of April 2019. United so far intends to use 6 of these aircraft to fly certain EWR-Europe routes the remaining 3 for now will be spares but like I stated before UA does not need 3 frames sitting on the ground at EWR nightly. I think as we get closer to April 2019 UA will have announced at least 7 routes that will be upguage to the 78J.

jayunited wrote:

fun2fly wrote:

If you read the thepointsguy.com article, he states that UA will have 6 TATL routes from EWR on the 787, not the 78J. That could mean 788/789's as he notes. I bet UA is playing it safe after the 77W delays.

With only 14 officially on order, and 9 being delivered by April or so, that only leaves 5 more 78J's and 4 more 789's officially (rumored 11 more 78J's). Perhaps they wrap the top up order with the 763 replacement order?

The points guys doesn't work for United, and I can say for sure there will not be any United 789's flying regularly scheduled service from EWR in 2019. If Boeing's delivery schedule holds United will have 9 78J frames in the fleet by the end of April 2019. United so far intends to use 6 of these aircraft to fly certain EWR-Europe routes the remaining 3 for now will be spares but like I stated before UA does not need 3 frames sitting on the ground at EWR nightly. I think as we get closer to April 2019 UA will have announced at least 7 routes that will be upguage to the 78J.

Or they might do a EWR-LAX/SFO flight in addition to the six trans Atlantic flights.

jayunited wrote:

fun2fly wrote:

If you read the thepointsguy.com article, he states that UA will have 6 TATL routes from EWR on the 787, not the 78J. That could mean 788/789's as he notes. I bet UA is playing it safe after the 77W delays.

With only 14 officially on order, and 9 being delivered by April or so, that only leaves 5 more 78J's and 4 more 789's officially (rumored 11 more 78J's). Perhaps they wrap the top up order with the 763 replacement order?

The points guys doesn't work for United, and I can say for sure there will not be any United 789's flying regularly scheduled service from EWR in 2019. If Boeing's delivery schedule holds United will have 9 78J frames in the fleet by the end of April 2019. United so far intends to use 6 of these aircraft to fly certain EWR-Europe routes the remaining 3 for now will be spares but like I stated before UA does not need 3 frames sitting on the ground at EWR nightly. I think as we get closer to April 2019 UA will have announced at least 7 routes that will be upguage to the 78J.

My guess is UA84/85 (EWR-TLV-EWR) goes to 78J. That rotation requires two frames to operate daily service. It's only a net loss of 5J (since sCO 772s sell 49 J seats to accommodate pilot rest) and increases Y capacity by 46, plus 21 PE, coupled with lower operating costs. It should be a serious moneymaker, especially on a route like TLV.

We also could see something like 2x EWR-LHR with 78J, or EWR-SFO/LAX in addition to the TATL schedule, which would leave 1-2 spares at different times of day.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/commerci ... -departure
Interesting... Is it possible they could move HQ to Houston?

AVENSAB727 wrote:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/united-airlines-exploring-willis-tower-departure
Interesting... Is it possible they could move HQ to Houston?

Pretty clear that the article is speculating UA will try to leverage the current state of the Chicago real estate market (with the multiple well-developed CRE proposals to pitch Amazon) to negotiate a favorable renewal of its Willis Tower lease or to exercise its 2023 termination right and move into one of those projects, if they go forward.

As for Houston, United is finally right-sized, in terms of real estate, now that the move to 609 Main is complete.

United is not leaving Chicago.

AVENSAB727 wrote:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/united-airlines-exploring-willis-tower-departure
Interesting... Is it possible they could move HQ to Houston?

What’s your definition of possible?

As stated pretty clearly in the article, any move, which at this point is extremely unlikely, would be within Chicago.

codc10 wrote:

AVENSAB727 wrote:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/united-airlines-exploring-willis-tower-departure
Interesting... Is it possible they could move HQ to Houston?

Pretty clear that the article is speculating UA will try to leverage the current state of the Chicago real estate market (with the multiple well-developed CRE proposals to pitch Amazon) to negotiate a favorable renewal of its Willis Tower lease or to exercise its 2023 termination right and move into one of those projects, if they go forward.

As for Houston, United is finally right-sized, in terms of real estate, now that the move to 609 Main is complete.

United is not leaving Chicago.

It’s also well documented that Scott Kirby wants out of Willis Tower. I don’t think this is a play to get a favorable renewal, it’s a play to get out!

wn676 wrote:

AVENSAB727 wrote:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/united-airlines-exploring-willis-tower-departure
Interesting... Is it possible they could move HQ to Houston?

What’s your definition of possible?

As stated pretty clearly in the article, any move, which at this point is extremely unlikely, would be within Chicago.

Just throwing it out there, United is only exploring, they may choose to stay at Willis for all we know.

flyguy84 wrote:

codc10 wrote:

AVENSAB727 wrote:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/united-airlines-exploring-willis-tower-departure
Interesting... Is it possible they could move HQ to Houston?

Pretty clear that the article is speculating UA will try to leverage the current state of the Chicago real estate market (with the multiple well-developed CRE proposals to pitch Amazon) to negotiate a favorable renewal of its Willis Tower lease or to exercise its 2023 termination right and move into one of those projects, if they go forward.

As for Houston, United is finally right-sized, in terms of real estate, now that the move to 609 Main is complete.

United is not leaving Chicago.

It’s also well documented that Scott Kirby wants out of Willis Tower. I don’t think this is a play to get a favorable renewal, it’s a play to get out!

UA ended up conceding enough in the negotiations with the City of Chicago over ORD. (They must’ve called AA’s bluff or something, given recent developments.) So of course it’s a great time to exploit the city and state for more concessions. In the long term it’s not sustainable by any means, but if other potential companies are sucking at the teat, a real company that actually has thousands of employees and a fundamental role in the economy might as well bite as hard as it can.

codc10 wrote:

jayunited wrote:

fun2fly wrote:

If you read the thepointsguy.com article, he states that UA will have 6 TATL routes from EWR on the 787, not the 78J. That could mean 788/789's as he notes. I bet UA is playing it safe after the 77W delays.

With only 14 officially on order, and 9 being delivered by April or so, that only leaves 5 more 78J's and 4 more 789's officially (rumored 11 more 78J's). Perhaps they wrap the top up order with the 763 replacement order?

The points guys doesn't work for United, and I can say for sure there will not be any United 789's flying regularly scheduled service from EWR in 2019. If Boeing's delivery schedule holds United will have 9 78J frames in the fleet by the end of April 2019. United so far intends to use 6 of these aircraft to fly certain EWR-Europe routes the remaining 3 for now will be spares but like I stated before UA does not need 3 frames sitting on the ground at EWR nightly. I think as we get closer to April 2019 UA will have announced at least 7 routes that will be upguage to the 78J.

My guess is UA84/85 (EWR-TLV-EWR) goes to 78J. That rotation requires two frames to operate daily service. It's only a net loss of 5J (since sCO 772s sell 49 J seats to accommodate pilot rest) and increases Y capacity by 46, plus 21 PE, coupled with lower operating costs. It should be a serious moneymaker, especially on a route like TLV.

We also could see something like 2x EWR-LHR with 78J, or EWR-SFO/LAX in addition to the TATL schedule, which would leave 1-2 spares at different times of day.

You've got a good guess with TLV. Perhaps both and free up 2x 77W for a TPAC route? UA is also pretty crafty with scheduling using units that have a lot of EWR downtime for domestic runs. Personally, I have both EWR <> LHR and CDG in April and I hope to get one!

flyguy84 wrote:

It’s also well documented that Scott Kirby wants out of Willis Tower. I don’t think this is a play to get a favorable renewal, it’s a play to get out!

When did Kirby state he wants out of Willis Tower?

The author of this article is quoting unnamed sources. The problem with Willis Tower is its now completely full and UA is still growing. When UA first moved into Willis our entire NOC was housed on one floor, come next year because of growth the NOC will expand and encompass 2 floors and one of those floors will almost entirely be devoted dispatchers. United over the years has consolidated a lot of departments and move them from satellite locations to either Willis Tower or Houston's 609 Main. As the airline continues to grow departments that use to have a lot of space now find themselves having to share space because of the expansion of the NOC. Some departments have even been moved out of Willis and are now at United's massive cargo building at ORD, some departments that dealt with pilot training and recurrent training and I believe the landings desk, have been moved to our pilots training facility in Denver all in an attempt to make room for the NOC expansion.
Personally I don't see United leaving Willis Tower especially seeing all of the money the owners of Willis Tower are spending remodeling this building from top to bottom. The owners have added a tenant only full service gym, a game room, 2 tenant only cafes a smaller one on the 34th floor and a larger one on with a lounge on the 66th and 67th floors.Then there is the construction on the new 5 floor atrium which will be open to the public which will include a host of shops, cafes, and restaurants and entertainment. None of this would have ever been possible if United had never come to Willis Tower and the tower would have a hard time filling all the space United currently occupies if United were to leave.
Then you have Amazon which just opened their new Amazon GO store half a block away from Willis. Also businesses around Willis Tower are booming whereas before United when the tower was 3/4 empty that section of downtown lagged. Before these owners let United leave I think they will just choose to not renew the lease of a few smaller companies in Willis to make room for UA.
Also this is about making sure UA does get the better deal when the time comes to renew the lease. Some of the locations mentioned in the article are not close to any major expressway, CTA or Metra train. As it stands right now Willis Tower is minutes away from I290 and I90/94, depending on downtown traffic your 5-15 minutes away from Lake Shore Drive, your half a block away from a CTA train station that serves 4 different CTA lines and you're across the river from Union Station, and blocks away from Ogilvie Transportation Center (2 major Metra hubs) and blocks away from Lasalle Street station another major Metra station. The only Metra station that isn't close is Millennium Station.

Here is some information on the new UA bank structure at DEN, partially loaded today and beginning February 14, 2019
DEN eastbound banks on UA (new schedule)
8am
11am
3:30pm and 8pm OR 5:30pm (cities closer to DEN get both on average, more easterly destinations get the ~5:30pm flight)

DEN westbound banks
8am
9:30am
2pm or 3:30pm
7pm

I like the better westbound times, previously cities like SMF, SAN, etc. wouldnt see their first departure from DEN till after 11am but now get far earlier departures.
Similarly Midwest cities like IND see ~6am flights to DEN now which is better for utilization and some business travelers than not having the first flight until ~9:30am.
SNA/SAN with their restrictive curfews now can get UA DEN flights to the first eastbound bank of the day (now slightly pushed back), which is an improvement from their previous schedule (first flight at 8am and connecting to very little) so this should help loads and yields through a boosted number of available connections.
On IND specifically I think this schedule is much better but hope they eventually replace the 6am flight with a RON mainline aircraft and add a 3pm DEN - 7:20 PM IND - 8pm IND - 9:20pm DEN flight to link up to a new late night westbound bank that would help a few aircraft rotations. I see that MSN, MSP, BNA, ATL (sort of) have flights that would link to ~10:30pm westbound bank, but at present westbound departures after 10pm are few and mainly summer seasonal to only a few cities SEA, PDX, SMF, LAX, SFO, etc.

Similarly eastbound flights from DEN that link from ~5pm West Coast departures (or 2pm in the case of ANC) are sparse, leaving little for any flight leaving the West Coast after 2pm to connect to.
This I believe is the geographical dilemma of DEN. Its well placed geographically but because of time zones, flights are "forced" into a narrow band of ~10am-7pm for west-east. DEN is great for heading west at all times of the day, but for eastbound flights, due to the relative lack of red-eyes, its a little hard to build a schedule with varied flight times through the day that leaves ample connections in both directions.
So I'm a complete amateur (should be obvious) but good job United and work on expanding the 10:30pm westbound bank, move some eastbound evening flights a bit later (although this might require rethinking some other rotations) and add ~1:30am redeye flights from SFO/LAX/LAS/SAN to feed the few 8am eastbound departures from DEN.
I hope this really helps them build and grow DEN, UA needs a megahub like AA/DL have.

Pretty massive changes for the morning flights, evenings look pretty similar to what's currently operating, I hope more is planned.
Could this be only a partial load of UA's changes for some reason?

Considering AA's recent announcement that DFW will reach nearly 900 daily departures and DL's ever threatening ATL, does UA have a path to catch up in hub scale?
http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/20 ... fault.aspx

The DEN changes recently will help them bulk up their hub there but I can't really see DEN going 600+ departures for United.
This was interesting as there has been a lot of recent growth already there.

In 2018, United has added more than 50 daily flights and started service to 12 new destinations from Denver including Flagstaff, Arizona; Sonoma County, California; and Monterrey, California.

https://hub.united.com/united-denver-ai ... 78312.html

SumChristianus wrote:

Here is some information on the new UA bank structure at DEN, partially loaded today and beginning February 14, 2019
DEN eastbound banks on UA (new schedule)
8am
11am
3:30pm and 8pm OR 5:30pm (cities closer to DEN get both on average, more easterly destinations get the ~5:30pm flight)

DEN westbound banks
8am
9:30am
2pm or 3:30pm
7pm

Just seeing this, but does that mean they're done with the late westbound bank (i.e. 10pm onwards?). Or is that just going to be seasonal?

joeblow10 wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

Here is some information on the new UA bank structure at DEN, partially loaded today and beginning February 14, 2019
DEN eastbound banks on UA (new schedule)
8am
11am
3:30pm and 8pm OR 5:30pm (cities closer to DEN get both on average, more easterly destinations get the ~5:30pm flight)

DEN westbound banks
8am
9:30am
2pm or 3:30pm
7pm

Just seeing this, but does that mean they're done with the late westbound bank (i.e. 10pm onwards?). Or is that just going to be seasonal?

It seems smaller than it was last summer as GEG for example has a 7pm departure now with many other examples. Very few > 10 pm flights are operating outside of peak summer westbound. SEA for example has a 10pm flight only during the summer as of now.

I think overall they should bring it back as it seems that there a lot of late arriving flights to DEN from both directions that don't meet many connecting outbound flights. Hopefully this is a two part schedule change with the evening work later as I think a 10pm secondary late westbound bank would be great for utilization.

It seems there are also holes in the late eastbound bank as some flights from the west arrive very late missing the 5pm and smaller 8pm eastbound banks:
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=RNO. ... 1;t:f;tt:o
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=ANC. ... 1;t:f;tt:o

For GEG here, it would be great if they could offer both a 7pm and a 10pm for example.
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=DEN. ... 1;t:f;tt:o

In summer 2019 it looks like the "westbound" (loosely defining it to also include COS, CPR, ABQ, etc.) as around ~16 daily flights for a rough estimate all leaving around 10-10:30.

Maybe UA has maxed out DEN demand with its current evening flight but just looking at DL's ATL schedule you see 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, ... late night departures on many of its trunk routes. Eventually I hope UA can manage something like 9:30am, 12pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, and 10pm on a route like GEG... and add RIW (I digress)

SumChristianus wrote:

joeblow10 wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

Here is some information on the new UA bank structure at DEN, partially loaded today and beginning February 14, 2019
DEN eastbound banks on UA (new schedule)
8am
11am
3:30pm and 8pm OR 5:30pm (cities closer to DEN get both on average, more easterly destinations get the ~5:30pm flight)

DEN westbound banks
8am
9:30am
2pm or 3:30pm
7pm

Just seeing this, but does that mean they're done with the late westbound bank (i.e. 10pm onwards?). Or is that just going to be seasonal?

It seems smaller than it was last summer as GEG for example has a 7pm departure now with many other examples. Very few > 10 pm flights are operating outside of peak summer westbound. SEA for example has a 10pm flight only during the summer as of now.

I think overall they should bring it back as it seems that there a lot of late arriving flights to DEN from both directions that don't meet many connecting outbound flights. Hopefully this is a two part schedule change with the evening work later as I think a 10pm secondary late westbound bank would be great for utilization.

It seems there are also holes in the late eastbound bank as some flights from the west arrive very late missing the 5pm and smaller 8pm eastbound banks:
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=RNO. ... 1;t:f;tt:o
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=ANC. ... 1;t:f;tt:o

For GEG here, it would be great if they could offer both a 7pm and a 10pm for example.
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=DEN. ... 1;t:f;tt:o

In summer 2019 it looks like the "westbound" (loosely defining it to also include COS, CPR, ABQ, etc.) as around ~16 daily flights for a rough estimate all leaving around 10-10:30.

Maybe UA has maxed out DEN demand with its current evening flight but just looking at DL's ATL schedule you see 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, ... late night departures on many of its trunk routes. Eventually I hope UA can manage something like 9:30am, 12pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, and 10pm on a route like GEG... and add RIW (I digress)

Summer schedule isn’t even close to being ready for sale. Network hasn’t even handed off the spring schedule yet to publishing.

SumChristianus wrote:

joeblow10 wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

Here is some information on the new UA bank structure at DEN, partially loaded today and beginning February 14, 2019
DEN eastbound banks on UA (new schedule)
8am
11am
3:30pm and 8pm OR 5:30pm (cities closer to DEN get both on average, more easterly destinations get the ~5:30pm flight)

DEN westbound banks
8am
9:30am
2pm or 3:30pm
7pm

Just seeing this, but does that mean they're done with the late westbound bank (i.e. 10pm onwards?). Or is that just going to be seasonal?

It seems smaller than it was last summer as GEG for example has a 7pm departure now with many other examples. Very few > 10 pm flights are operating outside of peak summer westbound. SEA for example has a 10pm flight only during the summer as of now.

I think overall they should bring it back as it seems that there a lot of late arriving flights to DEN from both directions that don't meet many connecting outbound flights. Hopefully this is a two part schedule change with the evening work later as I think a 10pm secondary late westbound bank would be great for utilization.

It seems there are also holes in the late eastbound bank as some flights from the west arrive very late missing the 5pm and smaller 8pm eastbound banks:
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=RNO. ... 1;t:f;tt:o
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=ANC. ... 1;t:f;tt:o

For GEG here, it would be great if they could offer both a 7pm and a 10pm for example.
https://www.google.com/flights#flt=DEN. ... 1;t:f;tt:o

In summer 2019 it looks like the "westbound" (loosely defining it to also include COS, CPR, ABQ, etc.) as around ~16 daily flights for a rough estimate all leaving around 10-10:30.

Maybe UA has maxed out DEN demand with its current evening flight but just looking at DL's ATL schedule you see 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, ... late night departures on many of its trunk routes. Eventually I hope UA can manage something like 9:30am, 12pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, and 10pm on a route like GEG... and add RIW (I digress)

Yeah, that’s largely what I noticed on google flights as well. Seems they’ve really shrunk things down next year after the 7pm hour. I noticed the B gates were a lot busier this year around 9-10pm with a lot of late departures and it made great options when you worked a full day Friday. Disappointing to see those reduced.

Those ~9pm ANC and RNO flights are a continuation of the pattern this year though... which is interesting, because as far as I could tell the principle idea behind those was to offer connections to that late 1030p bank going elsewhere around the West. SEA, SNA, and ATL sweet other ones arriving around that time this year that I don’t know could exist without that later departure bank, so maybe you’re right and there’s a second schedule update coming (Or one can at least hope, right?)

Also of interest to me is just how early they moved up some of the Westbound flights to cities like ANC and Hawaii that will indeed be going out at ~930a instead of closer to noon.

Hi, sorry if discussed before...

What happened to UA865 EWR-HAM? The seasonal service was not only uploaded in the systems, the flight was also upgraded to the larger B767.... But now it seems to been taken out from all reservation systems - any idea why?!

SumChristianus wrote:

Considering AA's recent announcement that DFW will reach nearly 900 daily departures and DL's ever threatening ATL, does UA have a path to catch up in hub scale?
http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/20 ... fault.aspx

The DEN changes recently will help them bulk up their hub there but I can't really see DEN going 600+ departures for United.
This was interesting as there has been a lot of recent growth already there.
https://hub.united.com/united-denver-ai ... 78312.html

I think you are comparing apples to oranges. Take DL's ATL which has over 1,000 daily departures then next largest hub doesn't even offer 500 daily departures or half of the departures of ATL.
AA has done a better job of spreading out their flights but if you look West and North of DFW the only AA hub is LAX and they can't dominate at LAX because they are fighting it out with DL, UA, and in the mountain region AA has no hub at all so DFW has to step in and take up all that slack. On a side note I believe AA is running circles around UA within the great state of Texas. There is no question when it comes to intra-Texas flights AA dominates and UA has some catching up to do. But other than that DFW has to handle the bulk of AA mountain traffic and lot of traffic that LAX can not handle.
Now take UA this past summer UA at ORD over 650 daily departures, I think next summer IAH will will come close to 600 daily departures, then there is DEN with over 300 daily departures this past summer, SFO with over 200 daily departures and finally LAX which this past summer had over 130 daily departures. If UA were to get rid of DEN, IAH would have to take up the slack (ORD couldn't because we don't have gates or space) and there you would have your super hub with 900 daily departures from IAH.
UA is catching up and beefing up our domestic network however I don't think you will ever see a UA hub with over 750 daily departures simply because domestically and especially west of the Mississippi River UA's network of hubs IAH, DEN, SFO, LAX can't be beat.

jayunited wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

Considering AA's recent announcement that DFW will reach nearly 900 daily departures and DL's ever threatening ATL, does UA have a path to catch up in hub scale?
http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/20 ... fault.aspx

The DEN changes recently will help them bulk up their hub there but I can't really see DEN going 600+ departures for United.
This was interesting as there has been a lot of recent growth already there.
https://hub.united.com/united-denver-ai ... 78312.html

I think you are comparing apples to oranges. Take DL's ATL which has over 1,000 daily departures then next largest hub doesn't even offer 500 daily departures or half of the departures of ATL.
AA has done a better job of spreading out their flights but if you look West and North of DFW the only AA hub is LAX and they can't dominate at LAX because they are fighting it out with DL, UA, and in the mountain region AA has no hub at all so DFW has to step in and take up all that slack. On a side note I believe AA is running circles around UA within the great state of Texas. There is no question when it comes to intra-Texas flights AA dominates and UA has some catching up to do. But other than that DFW has to handle the bulk of AA mountain traffic and lot of traffic that LAX can not handle.
Now take UA this past summer UA at ORD over 650 daily departures, I think next summer IAH will will come close to 600 daily departures, then there is DEN with over 300 daily departures this past summer, SFO with over 200 daily departures and finally LAX which this past summer had over 130 daily departures. If UA were to get rid of DEN, IAH would have to take up the slack (ORD couldn't because we don't have gates or space) and there you would have your super hub with 900 daily departures from IAH.
UA is catching up and beefing up our domestic network however I don't think you will ever see a UA hub with over 750 daily departures simply because domestically and especially west of the Mississippi River UA's network of hubs IAH, DEN, SFO, LAX can't be beat.

I also think EWR will begin to take a lot of the load.

Any thing to the rumor that UA is looking to start ORD-MAN next spring?