Back when United had a hub in Miami did they fly to JFK from MIA?

Yes. All 3 NYC airports - LGA/EWR and JFK were served.

Do you know when did they serve JFK-MIA?

According to below site, based on random schedules, MIA-JFK flight existing both July 1995 and June 2002

http://www.departedflights.com

I flew JFK-MIA in March 2002. Flight number was UA873, equipment was 763. I continued onwards to SCL with the same tail, but the flight number changed to UA867.
On the way back in April 2002 exactly the same, flight numbers were UA866 from SCL to MIA and UA872 from MIA to JFK, again 763 and the same tail on both flights.
Scheduled times were:
UA873 JFK 19:45 - MIA 22:53
UA872 MIA 7:00 - JFK 9:46

I used to fly from JFK to MIA on a 727 a zillion years ago- I think

After the GRU/GIG flight 987/988 was canceled, I had to go through Miami. I can’t recall if the flight went to GRU first, or they had an MIA to GIG?

Somewhat off topic, United tried IAD/GIG for a while. I was on the inaugural flight and I still have the pilot signed certificate with Tuscans on it! It saved one stop. I did have to take a HORRIBLE CRJ to IAD, to get that Rio non-stop.

There is another thread here about United and MIA. I think they seriously need to improve the experience on the MIA side. There are plenty of United aircraft that arrive at MIA everyday (especially during top season) to justify some love at the gate area.

If I recall they also flew MIA-ATL/MCO at times as well.

They axed LGA MIA after 9/11 and started JFK MIA on a 767.

It was a weird move and didnt last all that long

I worked in MIA between 1994 and 2004. Prior to 9-11, service was to LGA and EWR. If I recall correctly, service never resumed to LGA or perhaps only for a short time afterword before service moved to JFK. I don’t believe MIA had JFK service any earlier unless it was way before they established the Latin America hub there.

At various times when they had the Latin America gateway in MIA, they flew BOSMIA, LGAMIA, EWRMIA, JFKMIA, PHLMIA, DCAMIA, IADMIA, ATLMIA, and I believe MCOMIA. Many of those connecting flights didn't do very well and were axed one-by-one even before the take-down of the MIA gateway.

Looks like departedflights.com is right -- 7/95 OAG shows UA 993 JFK-MIA-CNF.

What equipment was on MIA-MCO?

Never BOS-MIA. All the others you mention yes. DEN, ORD,MDW, LGA,EWR,JFK,LAX,SFO, IAH, ATL and MCO to MIA. I am a UA flight attendant and was based in Miami from 1993-2004, when the base closed. All mostly 727’s and 737’s , other than the west coast, JFK and ORD, which were either 767’s, 777’s, or yes 747’s for a while..then obviously on to South America.

And UA just gave up MIA to AA heading to South America?

Yep. Pre-merger MIA was not a mainline station (ie at least 6 months of the year it was RJ only, IIRC) for UA.

This may help:

http://www.departedflights.com/UAMIAhub.html

The JFK/MIA flight continued onto South America. One flight down at night and one flight back to JFK in the AM. IIRC it was cut around 2002 with other JFK flights to destinations like SEA and ORD.

I recall the flight to EZE had a tag onto Montevideo for many years. Then it was cut. I have always wondered why United did that - I presume too much fuel for too few pax?
Yet, it “seems” like a good idea to reconsider today, that and perhaps other tags as so many ac just sit all day in the scorching sun at GRU?
If United used to hop over to GIG after GRU, I cannot help but wonder if a hop to Brasilia or Belo Horizonte would work? That would make Washington DC to Brasília just one stop. And BH is a rather large city. Or is their alliance with Azul and Avianca Brasil a more cost effective solution?
I can’t help but think that it would raise UA’s lower profile in South America vs AA out of MIA?

jfklganyc wrote:

They axed LGA MIA after 9/11 and started JFK MIA on a 767.

It was a weird move and didnt last all that long

That information is not correct. UA did not terminate LGA to start JFK.

I flew United between Miami and JFK/LGA throughout of 90s. UA had daily flights between Miami and JFK/LGA/EWR for over a decade.

I had flown 727 and 763 between MIA and JFK. LGA and EWR were flown on 727.

I LOVED UNITED 727’s! I miss them. They were always the aircraft that meant I was headed to Florida for fun- too much FUN
That said the one refurbished A319 UA occasionally sends to Miami is really nice, especially F.
But AA 727s were fab too. Remember the sheepskin fur in F? It was extremely comfortable but I always wondered what was living in there! Lol

UALMMFlyer wrote:

UA had daily flights between Miami and JFK/LGA/EWR for over a decade.

If you look at the timetables, they'll likely agree with

http://www.departedflights.com/UAMIAhub.html

No JFK-MIA for most of the 1990s.

VC10er wrote:

I recall the flight to EZE had a tag onto Montevideo for many years. Then it was cut. I have always wondered why United did that - I presume too much fuel for too few pax?
Yet, it “seems” like a good idea to reconsider today, that and perhaps other tags as so many ac just sit all day in the scorching sun at GRU?
If United used to hop over to GIG after GRU, I cannot help but wonder if a hop to Brasilia or Belo Horizonte would work? That would make Washington DC to Brasília just one stop. And BH is a rather large city. Or is their alliance with Azul and Avianca Brasil a more cost effective solution?
I can’t help but think that it would raise UA’s lower profile in South America vs AA out of MIA?

Yes, United had many tags over the years (SYD-MEL, SYD-BNE, AKL-MEL, EZE-MVD, GRU-GIG, etc). Unfortunatley, I don't think you will ever see tags again. They take a full additional set of crew to run the two tags and in most cases, they are just swapping out a sale in the nonstop market for a sale on to the through/tag destination. Therefore, the incremental revenue is low, yet you have higher crewing costs. I think United (and others) have figured out that's a losing proposition.

ADent wrote:

Yep. Pre-merger MIA was not a mainline station (ie at least 6 months of the year it was RJ only, IIRC) for UA.

This is true. Incredibly, UA mainline didn’t serve Miami at all. A flight attendant on a UA 767 from South America to IAD had a disagreement with the captain and it landed at MIA to offload the FA. I remember the excitement on here, not about the situation onboard but because a UA mainliner was on the ground at MIA.

Then a few years back they added Denver seasonal. Presumably they now have flights from EWR at least, IAD too perhaps. Don’t know why they ever felt they couldn’t fill a 737, Miami is a great place to visit and an economic boom town. Then again not much at United makes sense, whether it’s scrapping Miami, scrapping JFK, or providing a truly horrible experience for passengers. They used to be one of the best airlines on the planet.

After 9/11, UA axed LGA MIA on a 727 and added JFK on a 767.

KICT wrote:

What equipment was on MIA-MCO?

I took a DC-10 in 1995! That baby was on its last legs!

cedarjet wrote:

ADent wrote:

Yep. Pre-merger MIA was not a mainline station (ie at least 6 months of the year it was RJ only, IIRC) for UA.

This is true. Incredibly, UA mainline didn’t serve Miami at all. A flight attendant on a UA 767 from South America to IAD had a disagreement with the captain and it landed at MIA to offload the FA. I remember the excitement on here, not about the situation onboard but because a UA mainliner was on the ground at MIA.

Then a few years back they added Denver seasonal. Presumably they now have flights from EWR at least, IAD too perhaps. Don’t know why they ever felt they couldn’t fill a 737, Miami is a great place to visit and an economic boom town. Then again not much at United makes sense, whether it’s scrapping Miami, scrapping JFK, or providing a truly horrible experience for passengers. They used to be one of the best airlines on the planet.

UA went nominally regional at MIA before the from 2009-2011 for a few reasons:

1. the station was VERY senior and thus very expensive to run. This is because it consisted of just the most senior employees remaining from the MIA hub days.
2. IAD-MIA was full of connecting traffic to Europe. TATL yields were in the trash at the time so this route contributed nothing to the IAD hub and just diluted yields on IAD TATL flights.
3. ORD-MIA just absolutely sucked in the summer financially. It sucked pre-TED. It sucked with TED. During the winter it did OK. ORD-MIA did operate with mainline A320's during the winter/sprint the years the station was regional. AA always was and still is the 800 lb gorilla on this route. During peak DEN-MIA and IAD-MIA also sometimes operated (on mainline).
4. As a cost saving measure, UA put the station out to bid as a regional station, that under the existing CBA, would have required it to be all regional 75% of the year or something like that. UA's IAM aggressively wanted to keep the station and came up with an "insourcing" bid that basically paid regional scale but kept the UA employees on. However, this bid required that the station be treated like a regional station, as if an outsourced ground handler had won the contract.

Other things to note: at this time UA completely cut FLL and PBI and also made RSW regional, this was mainly due to mainline equipment shortages due to the 737 classic fleet retirement. RSW and MIA were viable in the summer on regional, PBI and FLL were not.

ADent wrote:

Yep. Pre-merger MIA was not a mainline station (ie at least 6 months of the year it was RJ only, IIRC) for UA.

Actually UA did fly mainline seasonally in 2009-2010. It was a 757 on DEN-MIA-DEN of all places and not ORD.

EWR-MIA was served until late 1999 on 727s and 735s. However, I do remember post 9/11 in 2002 United did restart EWR-MIA seasonally on Saturday's and Sunday's during the winter on an A320. I think this lasted until 2004-2005.

In 7th grade we were supposed to fly UA EWR-ORD-MIA going to FPO on vacation in February 2000. EWR-MIA had been gone under 6 months as a nonstop and EWR-ORD got cancelled due to a snowstorm in NJ. We rented a car and drove to DC and flew same day UA DCA-MIA nonstop on a 727 (since it was a late departure and it took us around 3 hours to drive there from NJ.) We had a legit hot dinner on that flight too and it was completely full. On the way home we were on a brand new 777 on MIA-ORD and a 757 ORD-EWR. That station was still bustling for UA prior to 9/11, I'm still not sure what happened as to why they closed it entirely (except for cuts in BK.)

I can't say about UA on JFK-MIA. I don't believe it was operated consistently over a long period of time like EWR/LGA-MIA.

tpaewr wrote:

If I recall they also flew MIA-ATL/MCO at times as well.

I remember both routes. I know ATL-MIA was a 727. Sadly these along with all the other eventually were dropped. United and the southeastern US has always had an interesting relationship. Almost non existent at times..lol

It is such a shame MIA closed before the merger. I think with the mass CO brought in LatAm it could have been a strategic complement to IAH but once closed it is never coming back sadly

tpaewr wrote:

It is such a shame MIA closed before the merger. I think with the mass CO brought in LatAm it could have been a strategic complement to IAH but once closed it is never coming back sadly

Not only that, but UAEX flew out of Terminal J which was new at the time and traded it in for the dumpy CO gates with lack of concessions.

By the time of the merger, MIA was out for any kind of expansion by UA. They're best shot was FLL which CO had an OK presence at with Silver Airways acting as a feeder carrier via codeshare. For a while, you could've considered FLL as a focus city with that code share post merger.

UA operates about half of its MIA flights from Concourse H, a much nicer terminal than the 1960s-era G concourse. There isn’t enough space to support the entire operation at H, which currently is about as large as it has been since the focus city days.