Originally Posted by
IAH-OIL-TRASH
The LAX O/D market is just too important to marginalize by shrinking. I do question using slot/gate space for a something like Medford. Makes me think T8’s RJ gates are limiting mainline expansion, and instead are stuck w/ expanding to a market like Medford. Southwest’s future expansion to Hawai‘i makes UA’s planned LAX-Hawai‘i expansion potentially a loser. I’d be directing mainline expansion towards business markets, not leisure.
Edit - Looks like only LAX-MFR non-stop is AA right now. Maybe UA is thinking of dropping one of 3 SFO-MFR flights to add one LAX-MFR? That would almost make sense.
As someone who has to connect to one of those smaller California cities, I'm happy that UA flies to them. California is just too big and has so little public transportation that driving to either SFO or LAX to get anywhere would just... It would really suck. The turnaround times for the UAX flights is usually pretty quick too.
In case of limited ATC operations these flights are the first to get delayed or canceled. Just a few weeks ago I got stuck in SFO because the incoming aircraft was coming from SAN which is considered close enough to be one of the flights that's flow limited when ATC is backed up, so I got stuck with a 3 hour delay.
I will say though, only one flight out of countless flights in the past 4 years hasn't gone out full from FAT to either SFO or LAX. Yes I travel during peak travel times (TH-F afternoon / M morning for example) but there's definitely a market there.