knope2001 wrote:

Finally there's a chance United could add ORD nonstops to an airport with no current service by a network carrier. Markets which come to mind include these:

Rockford
Youngstown
Oshkosh
St Cloud
Muncie
Branson
Elkhart
Battle Creek
Lafayette
Bloomington IN
Terre Haute
Topeka

.

Rockford - Too close to ORD. Would take more time to taxi then it would for the flight.
Youngstown - Not likely. Great Lakes was doing this route on an ERJ-145 this past summer, averaged 31 percent capacity
Oshkosh - Too close to Appleton as mentioned, which is already served by United
St Cloud - I think outside of Topeka, this has the best chance of restarting
Muncie - Too close to IND, which is already served by United
Branson - This airport needs some love. Maybe UA will help bring it back to life, although with them serving SGF, not likely
Elkhart - Too close to SBN, which is already served by United
Battle Creek - Too close to AZO, which is already served by United
Lafayette - Airport owned by Purdue University for flight school. No longer has no facilities for passenger transport
Bloomington IN - No longer has facilities to handle passenger transport
Terre Haute - This might actually work with two flights daily.
Topeka - I foresee this restarting in 2017.

With all of that said, I think I will add Quincy, IL (UIN) and Carbondale, IL (MDH) to this list. I think that these are both untapped markets with great potential.

303dk wrote:

What about PLN? Delta serves it 2-3 times daily and they get charters from MDW.

Pellston is an EAS market, and DL* service there is subsidized.

seanpmassey wrote:

knope2001 wrote:

I don't see Oshkosh being added as destination for UA. First, Oshkosh is just down the road from ATW, which already has UA service, and it's roughly about an hour from GRB and and an hour and a half from MKE.

Second, you have the issue of suspending commercial service for one week every summer while Oshkosh is taken over by EAA Airventure. The amount of traffic that OSH sees that week would make timely commercial service challenging.

It's true that Oshkosh is just 25 minutes from ATW and 90 minutes from MKE, but that's exactly the issue with most Midwestern airports which have lost service. The existing market drives someplace else they find convenient to use. That's a key reason it would be challenging for any of those airports to gain and support UA* RJ's.

Oshkosh's commercial service was not suspended during EAA -- OSH had as many as three carriers at once in the late 80's/early 90 between UA*, NW*, ML* and YX*.

I put a vote in for ORD - HVN.

piedmontf284000 wrote:

Lafayette - Airport owned by Purdue University for flight school. No longer has no facilities for passenger transport
Bloomington IN - No longer has facilities to handle passenger transport
Terre Haute - This might actually work with two flights daily.
Topeka - I foresee this restarting in 2017.

Lafayette does have the facilities for passenger transport. The airport is owned by Purdue University, but it's still a public airport. Flight school is just one use for the airport. I went there just a couple months ago, and the terminal is still there with some remnants of airline service. Here are pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/144923468@N08/albums/72157674701146564 The terminal is still used for bus service to Chicago.

I'm not sure about Bloomington

Terre Haute is interesting, because it, like Lafayette and Bloomington, doesn't have any recent statistics, and the only major airport nearby is IND.

I can't see Topeka getting service, United tried the flights a couple years ago and that didn't go so well.

SFOformerFA wrote:

I put a vote in for ORD - HVN.

I can't see this happening anytime soon. I visited HVN a couple months back, as I was in the East Coast, and the terminal right now is really small. I'm not sure that they could handle another airline. I can't comment on the state of the airport really, though, because I'm not too familiar with it. Also, the article from The Chicago Tribune said that they would be adding mainly midwestern airports.

UA needs to add more Florida service. I would add PBI

LAX772LR wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

SFOtoORD wrote:

Not sure it's completely true w CO. They were very light on WB aircraft coming into the merger and they certainly did much more leisure NB domestic flying than UA did.

They also did a lot of flying on 50-seaters that probably should have been on mainline (and would have been on mainline at other carriers). Look at the number of cities where they had no 737s ex-IAH and yet AA was all mainline to DFW.

AA was also significantly larger than CO, and the DFW operation is (and has for decades been) much larger than the IAH... so probably not the best comparison.

But even that aside, how was CO to close the gap anyway? They were leveraged to the hilt in their latter years, so who was going to give them favorable financing for a slew of new narrowbodies? Had the same issue with widebodies as well.

AA had several times the capacity in many cases at a hub that was roughly 50 percent larger depending on your measurement of choice. It's not a perfect comparison but not a totally irrelevant one either.

CO made a lot of choices that put them at a gauge disadvantage, and arriving at that disadvantage took time. It will likewise take time for UA to dig itself out.

Also, the runway at HVN is only 5000 ft. It would take a weight restriction every day Westbound.

Going out of the box and thinking Palm Springs year round. The airport has had huge growth including several seasonal mainline flights daily, with the season starting earlier. It used to be sporadically after the first of the year.

DEN could use mainline year round; when I worked for SkyWest there was a lot of O/D which is good for yields. AA for years has kept a year round to DFW even after the subsidy ended.

Summer travel also increases, especially from Europe during August. Plus the big resorts still bring in some convention business that really can't afford to due it in season.

Google an old Britt Airways, Alleghany, MVA, and Air Illinois and you will see flights to:

Danville, IL
Sterling / Rock Falls, IL
Galesburg, IL
Muncie, IN
Beloit / Janesburg, WI
etc.

The jet age made these routes unprofitable.

Look at Rio at DFW, same story.

Oh the good old days!

And Air Illinois flew BAC-111 for some time too.

And Air Illinois flew BAC-111 for some time too.