Originally Posted by
kevanyalowitz
You are missing the point. United is cutting routes that aren't making money is fine. However, they aren't making money on these routes because they are allowing the competition to own markets (SEA) where UA was once strong. SEA-NRT has been around longer than any other United international route - why did it go from being profitable over the long term to unprofitable?
Why did it go from being profitable over the long term to unprofitable?
Easy, DL building up and ANA starting service. Regardless of what's going on with AS/DL, it really provides something that UA doesn't and that's feed. UA had decent feed over the years but that is slowly dwindly and I think the local market has probably migrated to DL because there is more to offer from a network perspective. And with ANA operating on its own metal, UA is probably relying more on local traffic or what they can connect to the stripped down UA NRT hub or ANA's feed. UA was strong(er) in SEA in the 80-90's but that has slowly diminished, and as much as its kind of sad to see this vestige of PA get eliminated, the writing was on the wall.