spin88

There fixed it for you Lark.

p.s. but seriously, this is just the knock on effects that certain of us have been predicting. UAL cut its capacity as that was "savvy" and drove away lots of HVFers. Delta saw opportunity at LAX, jumped, and pushed at SEA. UAL did not react. UAL lost fliers at SEA/LAX downgaged, lost more traffic. Soon routes became less profitable, and SEA was pulled down. Yet losing SEA fliers (and LAX fliers) impacted the flights to PDX as UAL lost HVFers and elites, so PDX got unprofitable. SO PDX gets cut. Well the pull downs both places will have a nock on effect (further) on LAX. Expect cuts there as once profitable routes become marginal and once marginal routes bleed red ink.

Now, where UAL was the ONLY option for West Coast Travelers, and the West was UAL's cash cow, DAL offers better service in many places, and as they build out LAX (and some SFO heft may be next, or a VX tie up. ) and SEA, they will become a better option than UAL for HVFers on the West Coast, and yet more traffic will shift. At some point, UAL's traffic ex SFO, which counts on feed from other west coast cities, will be at risk as well.

DBCme

At this rate, one day all these threads that read, "UA to cut...." might say, "UA to close. Period."

B787938

The extent that United has pulled back from the Northwest is shocking. However, their cost structure is untenable. At this point, they are the highest cost legacy airline-including Alaska. Alaska has some of the lowest unit costs of legacy carriers. The way United is running it's business is a head scratcher. I love the fact that they're investing in new aircraft; however, DAL's approach to keeping older well-maintained aircraft in the air seems to be paying dividends for them. Not to mention deploying large regional jets to markets where they see an opportunity to increase marketshare-like Seattle and Portland.

LASUA1K

It's a shame this airline is fading fast. They need help asap! LAX-PDX gone. Just amazing. I'm guessing LAX will go down to ORD, SFO, DEN, IAH, EWR and maybe we see JFK get cut also. I wouldn't be suprised. LAX will be like any other city. SEA is getting cut next, LAS is mostly rj, phx is rj. Basically everything is rj except for hub flying. Sad.

u2vox

Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Ugh. This is horrible. Could be the nail in my coffin for giving any non-essential biz to UA anymore.

steveman518

Hopefully this will get me a less complex SEA-YVR-SYD for an award trip in december, though knowing United/SHARES it'll probably be SEA-SFO-YVR-SYD...

aacharya

The logic that PDX-LAX cuts means JFK-LAX is cut as well is baffling. If only FT could stick to logical conclusions...but I know, we like this drama. I'm willing to bet LAX-JFK sticks around a year from now, and will even give 2:1 odds.

Why? Awards easily factor in partner carriers, and don't tend to promote backtracking if such partner carrier flights exist.

sfozrhfco

You will likely have to find another routing with award space available or find your own way from PDX to SEA and back.

aacharya

A note that for UA metal, they can open up space due to this change.

DXjr

Nearly all of the Brasilias that SkyWest flies are all mid-to-late 90's vintage, with most coming straight from the factory to support the UAX network. So, in airplane terms, they're still quite young. The main problem, though, is that part availability is slowly dwindling, particularly with propellers. Hamilton Standard stopped making the blades sometime in the early 2000's, and supply and demand has shot the price through the roof.

It wouldn't surprise me if SkyWest ends up taking some of their oldest birds offline to part out because of this issue.

Only a few cities can't support the CRJ or larger because of FAA wingtip clearance requirements, too short a runway, or not enough people to support the service; cities like CEC, CLD.

PSP and SBA will still have service, and ACV can support jets. There was SLC service a few years ago, although DL was not successful in that market.

As for SGU, they've had a new airport for 3 years now, and has been all jet since the LAX flight was pulled. The main reason why they only flew the E-120 into the old airport was because of wingtip clearance requirements on the taxiway, although aircraft as large as the E-195 were able to fly in because they were not flying revenue under part 121.

golfingboy

The intra-Oregon operation never really made much sense considering AS has a pretty strong operation in the area.

PDX-SEA, while that route is convenient for *A connections, there is the AC option to YVR and there is always SFO. PDX-SEA was duplicating what was available.

Now, PDX-LAX, that does not make sense and that is rather shocking for me. I know this route is a little oversaturated and connecting passengers would go through SFO or DEN instead of going all the way down to LAX adding more flying time to connect to the rest of USA. The only destination that a LAX connection does not involve backtracking is to Mexico or smaller cities within Southern California. Nonetheless, this will have a negative impact on the LAX operation [much smaller than some claim here though] since that means less option for certain flyers and LAX will lose some connecting traffic.

Sometimes, to maintain market leadership, it is necessary to offer some unprofitable product/option to support the macro operation [the whole is greater than the sum of its parts]. It is just like Xerox offering every single option for a copying machine, even if the folding option is not profitable. Since a major company might have 500 machines, but with only 10 that have the folding option for certain purposes in specific business lines. Now, Xerox looks at their package and realizes that only 5% of the orders have the folding option and they are not making money on that component, so they decide to cut that offering to improve their profit margin per unit sold. Now that company with 500 machines learns that they can no longer get the folding option, which means they need to find a company that offers such option and that opens the door for the competitor to not only get business for those 10 machines but all 500 machines. Naturally, companies prefer to stick with one supplier as it is easier to manage plus the indirect cost is much lower. Now, Xerox did not only lose 10 orders, but 500 orders.

UA is not thinking carefully IMO when it comes to cutting routes. There have been some massive downgauges at PIT and quite few frequency cuts and it keeps getting worse [trend began just under 2 years ago].

dc333

Allow me ; [email protected]

Email the nice folks there with your status match inquiry and I'm sure they'd love to get the ball rolling.

I imagine you aren't alone in this thread.

goingbananas

Just to add here....SkyWest is actually INCREASING (via transfers in while aggressively hiring to backfill) the flight attendant base in PDX even after these cuts on the UA side. The reason? They are increasing the AS and DL flying out of there going forward.

trk1

3 pdx smb cities dropped that are money losers and have been skywest risk routes. Skywest no longer wants to run them.

Pdx to lax will go mainline is not being dropped

Hartmann

Where are you getting your info? UA only runs what, 2-3 flights PDX-LAX a day and one of those is a CR2, the other two are CR7s. I highly doubt they're going to increase capacity on a route that is already bare bones.


Losing LAX is a little painful. We are going to be moving to PDX this summer and I was going to rely on the p.s. flights for my work travel but I don't want to double connect to get to NY.