United Pulls Out of Atlantic City 7 Months After Beginning Operations
Jeff Edwards November 10, 2014
After only seven months in Atlantic City, United Airlines is abandoning service to the beleaguered gambling and resort destination.
On November 7, United Airlines announced plans to withdraw from Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), blaming the decision on a lack of passengers.
“In every market we serve, we continually review demand for the service and our Atlantic City routes are no longer sustainable,” the statement read. “We’re disappointed that the service from ACY didn’t meet our expectations and we will end the flights to Chicago and Houston effective December 3, 2014.”
The Star-Ledger reported that the airline was struggling to fill seats on flights to ACY from its hubs at O’Hare International Airport (ORD) and George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). The daily flights operated by United’s ExpressJet subsidiary were serviced by Embraer 50-seat commuter jets.
The move to scrap flights to ACY comes almost a year after United CEO Jeff Smisek and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie held a press conference at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) announcing that the airline would begin service to Atlantic City. At the time, United introducing service to ACY was seen as a boon to the city’s casino industry. Since the announcement, however, the gambling mecca has suffered through a string of casino closings and bankruptcies.
Christie told The Star Ledger that United’s move came as a surprise to his office. “I just heard about it when it was announced. We didn’t really get much of a heads up from them.”
While admitting he had little control over United’s decision, Christie told the Ledger he fully expects to have further discussions with the airline. “I’m going to be reaching out to the CEO and sit down and talk to them about what their reasoning was for all of that, (but) again, they make business decisions both to come in and to leave — we can’t control that,” he said. “But I’d certainly like to have a deeper explanation than the one I have gotten so far, which is none.”
United’s exit from Atlantic City leaves Spirit Airlines as the sole carrier at ACY, but New Jersey officials haven’t given up on trying to attract new airlines. The Press of Atlantic City reported in October that the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, the New Jersey agency responsible for the Atlantic City Tourism District, is planning a $5 million program that would subsidize airlines willing to enter the Atlantic City market.
[Photo: Atlantic City International Airport]
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Part of the problem, I think, is ACY's location relative to the majors' hubs. Where is there actual demand for travel to/from Atlantic City? I would though mostly from the East cost but from where it's too far to drive. But UA's EWR hub is definitely too close, and even IAD is probably too close, DL's and AA's JFK hub is too close, US's (soon to be AA's) PHL hub is too close. But HOU and ORD seem too far away (people that far west are more likely to want to go to almost-as-close Las Vegas than Atlantic City, no?). So rather randomly picking an airline (UA in this case) with no attention to where its hubs are, perhaps ACY officials should do some studies on where people actually want to fly to ACY from (or from ACY to), and figure out what (if any) airline has hubs in the best places for that to work.