Why No IAH-FAR On UA Or UA Express?

1337Delta764 · Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:16 pm

Considering IAH is UA's largest hub by passengers and second by number of flights (behind ORD), why wouldn't UA (or UA Express) have an IAH-FAR flight? I would think there would be some demand for it. UA currently flies to ORD and DEN from FAR.

Tdan · Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:26 pm

Because there is no demand for it compared to the rest of the state of North Dakota. Most of the IAH-ND traffic is Bakken related and slanted to MOT, ISN, DIK, etc. The better question is why does UA not fly IAH-MOT on a scheduled basis?

jetblue1965 · Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:33 pm

Quoting 1337Delta764 (Thread starter):
Considering IAH is UA's largest hub by passengers and second by number of flights (behind ORD), why wouldn't UA (or UA Express) have an IAH-FAR flight? I would think there would be some demand for it. UA currently flies to ORD and DEN from FAR.

Between DEN and ORD, there are very few markets not reachable, or that IAH would show an upper hand. The only obvious cases would be Mexico and LatAm, but I guess the demand is too small.

Obviously DL's MSP location makes it a best connection point

Rdh3e · Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:36 pm

Quoting 1337Delta764 (Thread starter):
Considering IAH is UA's largest hub by passengers and second by number of flights (behind ORD), why wouldn't UA (or UA Express) have an IAH-FAR flight? I would think there would be some demand for it. UA currently flies to ORD and DEN from FAR.

The answer is probably something along the lines of "The local market isn't large enough and the flow that would use IAH is carried over the existing DEN/ORD flights."

But I don't have the data to support that conclusion.

FARmd90 · Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:01 pm

Hello, Long time follower first time poster,

I've been wondering about this route for a long time and have wondered why UA doesn't offer this. I do agree with that a lot of
traffic that would use this is in the western half, but FAR has been growing at a crazy rate and feel like it could support a once
daily. AA offers DFW, DL offers MSP, SLC, and ATL (once weekly though) but it still shows there is some of a market there.
And when DL first announced the ATL service they said it would only be seasonal but went year round Saturday only the first
year, so it must be working.

And on another question kind of related tot he topic, what are the chances of a FAR-SEA flight on AS?...

MesaFlyGuy · Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:06 pm

Quoting FARmd90 (Reply 4):
And on another question kind of related tot he topic, what are the chances of a FAR-SEA flight on AS?...

I'm not familiar with the traffic on that route, but I'd say the chances of seeing AS at FAR are somewhere between zero and none.

29erUSA187 · Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:18 pm

Quoting FARmd90 (Reply 4):
AA offers DFW

You may have hit the nail on the head with this one.

AA may have the ND-Texas/LatAm route all sealed up. It may not be economically viable for UA to compete with AA.

iowaman · Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:24 pm

UA did recently start IAH-ISN. Quite the haul on an E145. Don't know if FAR really has the demand for it though as ISN has the oil connections.

LAXdude1023 · Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:25 pm

Quoting 29erUSA187 (Reply 6):
You may have hit the nail on the head with this one.

AA may have the ND-Texas/LatAm route all sealed up. It may not be economically viable for UA to compete with AA.

DFW-FAR is a much larger local market than IAH-FAR.

IAH-ND traffic is summed up perfectly below:

Quoting Tdan (Reply 1):
Because there is no demand for it compared to the rest of the state of North Dakota. Most of the IAH-ND traffic is Bakken related and slanted to MOT, ISN, DIK, etc

Here is another thing to consider. If a market like IAH-CID didnt work, the odds of IAH-FAR are much lower.

I would also caution against the whole "If DFW has it, IAH can support it too" arguement. Just like IAH supports a larger number of cities in Latin America, DFW can support smaller cities in the US that IAH cannot for two reason: 1) Demand and 2) Geography.

CIDFlyer · Tue Nov 18, 2014 11:36 pm

Quoting 29erUSA187 (Reply 6):
AA may have the ND-Texas/LatAm route all sealed up. It may not be economically viable for UA to compete with AA.

Quoting LAXdude1023 (Reply 8):
Here is another thing to consider. If a market like IAH-CID didnt work, the odds of IAH-FAR are much lower.

exactly. DFW seems to work because it is a true megahub in the ATL/DL sense and has far more O&D to markets in the midwest more than IAH does. Not sure why but it does. CID is a good example of this. When it was announced I really had high hopes as UA was the market leader here and gaining access to their southern hub looked good on paper. But it lasted only about 2 years. AA is just too strong in the midwest-Texas market I presume. Plenty of other markets you would think IAH would work but no flights like MSN/PIA/MLI etc. DSM only has a couple RJ's a day compared to larger RJ's and some token mainline that goes to both DEN/ORD so that tells me it must have just enough O&D and connections to sustain it but nothing enough to throw anything larger on it, unlike how DL sends mainline to ATL and AA sends mainline to DFW.

[Edited 2014-11-18 15:45:49]

toxtethogrady · Wed Nov 19, 2014 1:52 am

Quoting CIDFlyer (Reply 9):
exactly. DFW seems to work because it is a true megahub in the ATL/DL sense and has far more O&D to markets in the midwest more than IAH does. Not sure why but it does.

DFW has supply that taps the demand.

What seems to be more at work is that UA does not want connecting traffic because their fare structure does not make it as profitable as O&D directly to the hub. Having gone to this strategy, though, UA has not made its network look like Southwest's, with lots of point-to-point routes designed to capture O&D. That doesn't work too well.

Meanwhile, there is only one thing that makes a hub a mega-hub that attracts demand - more flights. If DFW had been built to meet the perceived O&D, it would be much smaller. And the same is true of Atlanta. Or are we really saying Charlotte has a better O&D profile than Houston?

northwestEWR · Wed Nov 19, 2014 3:24 am

Quoting CIDFlyer (Reply 9):
Quoting 29erUSA187 (Reply 6):
AA may have the ND-Texas/LatAm route all sealed up. It may not be economically viable for UA to compete with AA.
Quoting LAXdude1023 (Reply 8):
Here is another thing to consider. If a market like IAH-CID didnt work, the odds of IAH-FAR are much lower.

exactly. DFW seems to work because it is a true megahub in the ATL/DL sense and has far more O&D to markets in the midwest more than IAH does. Not sure why but it does. CID is a good example of this. When it was announced I really had high hopes as UA was the market leader here and gaining access to their southern hub looked good on paper. But it lasted only about 2 years. AA is just too strong in the midwest-Texas market I presume. Plenty of other markets you would think IAH would work but no flights like MSN/PIA/MLI etc. DSM only has a couple RJ's a day compared to larger RJ's and some token mainline that goes to both DEN/ORD so that tells me it must have just enough O&D and connections to sustain it but nothing enough to throw anything larger on it, unlike how DL sends mainline to ATL and AA sends mainline to DFW.

I'm still amazed UA couldn't make CID-IAH work. Having worked at UA/CID, the number of connections going through DEN/ORD just to get to IAH was kind of shocking--especially among Premier members. Only EWR/LGA, DCA, LAX and SFO had more people connecting to them. I don't think most people knew about the flight frankly.

IF UA were to launch a FAR-IAH, they would need some real marketing talent to get the word out.

FARmd90 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 4:01 am

Awesome to see all the replies so far, so for the time being it seems like AA has the FAR-Texas market locked up. Hopefully with the growing numbers FAR is showing and once
UA gets their house in order we can see some IAH-Midwest expansion?

jetblue1965 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 4:04 am

Quoting FARmd90 (Reply 12):

Is it a FAR-Texas market or mostly just a FAR-Dallas market ? If it's the latter UA stands no chance to win against a nonstop option, no matter how good their offering is

FARmd90 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 4:11 am

Actually now that you say that, I think that it may be combination of everything and AA has the FAR-Texas and beyond market locked up.
So sorry for the confusion as that's what I was trying to say.

LAXdude1023 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 4:43 am

Quoting jetblue1965 (Reply 13):
Is it a FAR-Texas market or mostly just a FAR-Dallas market ? If it's the latter UA stands no chance to win against a nonstop option, no matter how good their offering is

DFW-FAR is about 3x larger than IAH-FAR. IAH-FAR is barely larger than AUS-FAR and about 2x as large as SAT-FAR.

As far as Texas and Fargo are concerned, yes the market is pretty much Dallas.

Quoting toxtethogrady (Reply 10):
f DFW had been built to meet the perceived O&D, it would be much smaller.

Thats true of just about every hub including IAH.

strfyr51 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 5:06 am

Quoting 1337Delta764 (Thread starter):
Considering IAH is UA's largest hub by passengers and second by number of flights (behind ORD), why wouldn't UA (or UA Express) have an IAH-FAR flight? I would think there would be some demand for it. UA currently flies to ORD and DEN from FAR

OK? So here's the Question, Did Continental offer the service Pre-Merger?? If in fact they did then there's no reason to NOT do it again . I know Pm-UA flew to
FAR. and they do so Now. Is this a market or just a wish list item??

PEK777 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 5:11 am

When I read the thread title, I assumed the code to mean 'IAH-Fairbanks, Alaska' and thought, yep I bet United would try and make that an express flight on an ERJ.

FARmd90 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 5:13 am

CO didn't offer service to IAH before the merger. I believe they once served Fargo way back in the day when everything was regulated, but not sure when they stopped flying here.

wingsofman72 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 4:11 pm

CO did server FAR back right after the FL takeover in '87 Routing was FAR-BIS-DEN with a FL MD80.

Had a great flight FAR-BIS along I-94 with about 20 other folks. Back in the day where there were all kinds of flights with stops that connected smaller cities, but with mainline aircraft.

toxtethogrady · Wed Nov 19, 2014 8:11 pm

Quoting FARmd90 (Reply 14):
Actually now that you say that, I think that it may be combination of everything and AA has the FAR-Texas and beyond market locked up.

UA basically surrendered Texas to AA back when they threw their hissy-fit over HAS bringing an FIS to HOU. What was ridiculous was their assumption that BPT passengers would be willing to bus it to IAH. AA sized up the market and moved in.

toxtethogrady · Wed Nov 19, 2014 8:13 pm

Quoting LAXdude1023 (Reply 15):
Thats true of just about every hub including IAH.

Thus, the differences between DFW and IAH reflect the differing strategies of AA and UA, and little else.

jetblue1965 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 8:20 pm

Quoting toxtethogrady (Reply 21):
Thus, the differences between DFW and IAH reflect the differing strategies of AA and UA, and little else.

It also reflects the fact that UA has a DEN, which is a very well-placed hub to service FAR (and many of the neighboring markets) from the western half of the nation

FAR-DFW-LAX is a 90-degree L-shape routing while FAR-DEN-LAX is only 3.4% longer than great circle. Going to SFO or SEA, the equation is even more lopsided in favor of DEN.

jmc1975 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:22 pm

Quoting FARmd90 (Reply 4):
And on another question kind of related tot he topic, what are the chances of a FAR-SEA flight on AS?...

If AS were to come out with a brand-new CR7 route from SEA, FAR would be a very likely contender.

AA777223 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:54 pm

I'm sorry, but every time I see someone type FAR-TX it makes me think of some gastrointestinal product.

LAXdude1023 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 10:08 pm

Quoting toxtethogrady (Reply 20):
UA basically surrendered Texas to AA back when they threw their hissy-fit over HAS bringing an FIS to HOU. What was ridiculous was their assumption that BPT passengers would be willing to bus it to IAH. AA sized up the market and moved in.

Youre not getting it.

The reason that DFW has service to more smaller heartland cities and IAH has service to more Latin American cities is two fold: 1) Local market demand and 2) Geography. AA and UA have nothing to do with that.

FARmd90 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 10:12 pm

Quoting jmc1975 (Reply 23):

Agreed, now that AS seems to be filling in the middle of the country it seems like the Dakotas may be the only other "hole" to fill.

[Edited 2014-11-19 14:13:16]

FARmd90 · Wed Nov 19, 2014 10:18 pm

Quoting iowaman (Reply 7):

It is actually MOT-IAH as I don't think ISN could get a ERJ off the runway on such a long route due to some geography/runways length restrictions. (I could very well be wrong, please correct me if I am)

Rdh3e · Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:13 pm

Quoting FARmd90 (Reply 27):
It is actually MOT-IAH as I don't think ISN could get a ERJ off the runway on such a long route due to some geography/runways length restrictions. (I could very well be wrong, please correct me if I am)

You are incorrect. UA flies IAH-ISN. The IAH-MOT flights that pop up are all charters.

CIDFlyer · Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:15 pm

Quoting northwestEWR (Reply 11):
I'm still amazed UA couldn't make CID-IAH work. Having worked at UA/CID, the number of connections going through DEN/ORD just to get to IAH was kind of shocking--especially among Premier members. Only EWR/LGA, DCA, LAX and SFO had more people connecting to them. I don't think most people knew about the flight frankly.

I was really surprised too. Given the large number of UA frequent fliers and that it is one of the top carriers here (it usually is number 1 but I think DL has gained on them now) I thought the IAH flight from here in CID would have been a winner. I guess UA fliers are just pre-dispositioned to fly through ORD/DEN. Heck I know someone who just flew to IAH but drove to DSM to take the non stop. Hoping maybe one day it will come back but not holding my breath.

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