United Airlines drops flights to three US cities

Beginning later this month, United Airlines plans to end flights to three city-pair routes, two of which were considered Essential Air Service (EAS) routes by the United States government. SkyWest, operating as United Express previously held a government contract to provide services to two cities in South Dakota; Pierre (PIR) and Watertown (ATY).

The EAS government contract for Pierre and Watertown had actually expired back in April 2021, however United and their connection partner decided to continue operating each service until they were outbid for slots. After a successful bid, Denver Air Connection, which operates a mix of Embraer 145 and Dornier 328 jets has now been awarded the government contract for flights to Pierre (PIR) and Watertown (ATY) until the end of May 2023.

Additionally, SkyWest which operates United Express services will also be ending flights from Houston (IAH) to Joplin, Missouri (JLN). SkyWest and United have not given out specific dates for when they plan to fly the route for the last time, but a spokesperson on behalf of SkyWest said that it would end within the month.

“We are continually working with our partners to evaluate demand and service levels across our network; customers who are booked beyond these service dates will be contacted for rebooking options,”

Unfortunately, the news regarding flight services being terminated doesn’t end there. Earlier this week, on November 3rd, Texas A&M University announced that United and its regional partner, SkyWest will be terminating their twice-daily service to Houston Airport (IAH) in early January 2022.

The Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, John Sharp went on to describe the decision by United Airlines as “devasting.” The Chancellor added that “we’re doing everything we can to get them to change their mind.”

United Airlines still has high expectations for its domestic umbrella route network. The carrier stated it will continue to work with its partners to evaluate demand and service levels across its domestic network. For this month alone, the airline has scheduled over 3,500 daily flights, which is around 90% of its route network when compared with its pre-Covid route network for November 2019. 

“We’re seeing a lot of pent-up demand in our data and are offering a December schedule that centers on the two things people want most for the holidays: warm sunshine and fresh snow”

Ankit Gupta, vice president of network planning and scheduling at United.

The airline is anticipating a couple of spikes in travel demand over the next two months, with some of the busiest flying days of the year, such as the 24th to the 28th of November, the Thanksgiving holiday travel period and from December 23rd to January 2nd, the usual travelling period for Christmas and New Year’s holidays. 

Source: https://aeronewsx.com/united-airlines-drops-flights-to-three-us-cities/