pilottim747

I reported earlier this month on my MSP blog that it looks like United is ending its non-stop MSP-IAD service on June 7th. United started this route in April 2004 with 3x daily CRJs and now is just a once daily E170.

I always thought United loads (and revenues) were pretty strong out of MSP. IAD can be reached fairly easy through ORD but the non-stop has been useful for Europe connections. Perhaps this route didn't produce enough revenue above and beyond what could DEN and ORD brought in.

Has anyone flown this route? Any other thoughts on why it is being discontinued?

haddon90

i've been to MSP a few times in the last year. i only took the nonstop back once in F, and the flight was fairly full. not sure why they would discontinue it. they could probably substitute one of the many ORD flights and put it on IAD, sine there are more european destinations on UA. but who knows.

jvoight34

I moved to MSP in September and unfortunately, every time a connection in IAD would be more convenient, I could only find a flight on UX. I thought, if anything, the route MSP->IAD would see more utility--how did you find this out, if I may ask?

JV

DogHead

I don't know what do You expect... UA discontinued LON-NYC service, the biggest and most profitable city pairing in the world. So... ?

pilottim747

I was just searching the *A timetable. When I didn't find anything past June 6 I looked on united.com and then a CRS.

That's true.

haddon90

for UA, i think the ORD-HKG and SFO/LAX-SYD flights are more profitable than JFK-LHR. but i may be wrong.

mahasamatman

Profitable for who? Apparently not for United.

If United is discontinuing MSP-IAD, I suspect they have a more profitable use for that airplane. Send some of those E170s west; I'm sick of CRJs!

DogHead

You're right... profitable to anyone bu United.

Benny8444

UA may be using that plane for IAD-OKC.

NW has plenty of flights from IAD and DCA to MSP. No one flys IAD-OKC. I think UA could make a lot of money on IAD-OKC.

sxf24

NYC-LON has lots of traffic, but there are plenty of routes with higher yields.

ksandness

Any official word on this?

rch4u

United only announces when routes are launched ... the company, for good reason, remains silent when it axes routes. Or, in the case of ex-JFK flights, they tout the axed routes as "fortressing a hub" or "investing in our network."

Check out the timetable starting June 7 ... no IAD-MSP. What's funny is that United has not removed the aircraft positioning flight from MSP-ORD:

Minneapolis, MN (MSP)
Chicago (O'Hare), IL (ORD)
7 June 2007

UA7640~ MSP 7:30 PM ORD 8:59 PM E70 1h29m

Maybe next update?

MVFlyer

They probably don't get enough high end int'l traffic coming from MSP thru IAD to warrant the flight. Regular UA pax can go thru ORD; more casual and/or business flyers can use NW (although I wouldn't know why anyone would....)

cayenne92

Well this stinks. I can see why they are cutting the route. I frequently travel MSP-IAD but usually end up routing through ORD because the time on the direct flight did/does not match my needs. But for vacation purposes it was a great flight. I guess that means longer over the "pond" for vacation
The few times I have flown the direct it was 85%+ filled. But the price I have been paying for MSP-IAD is amazingly low. I have seen it drop over the past 18 months to a mere 265 for next week (or lower if you can fly at the bad times) 3 day advance purchase.

On a side note, funny Benny8444 mentioned IAD-OKC. I thought for a moment it was MSP-OKC. I have at least 4 more trips to OKC this year. That would have been nice.

pilottim747

Looks like it has been corrected. It will be a once daily E170 flying DEN-MSP-ORD.