Originally Posted by
boat9781
From the days of Shuttle by United, the company has always had — at least a vision — to be the predominant carrier on the West Coast.
Over the last decade, we’ve seen a dwindling of service out of the outstations and UA opted to focus on the San Francisco hub. LA is beginning to come back. But what’s stopping United from launching more point to point service out of CA cities to other west coast business markets. Continental brought EWR SNA, and I know people that swear by that flight. Why not offer more ex-SNA service, for example. I’m flying more to SJC for work presently out of LAX and United doesn’t even offer an option on that route, which seems bizarre.
Virgin/Alaska is gearing up, why not United?
That vision is still there. They're the #1 legacy carrier in the West coast. And they have the most international service by far. WN has a stranglehold on intra-CA service. Trying to go up against that would be foolish. Every airline is picking and choosing their battles. One battle UA isn't interested much in is the intra-CA market out of the LA basin.
Originally Posted by
hoshattack
Will it ever be a fortress hub like IAH or EWR? No. But I'm continually flabbergasted by the fact that UA only has one or two flights SEA-LAX (and only seasonally mainline at that). It's that kind of pitiful service that really says "we don't care"
LAX-SEA is one of the biggest bloodbaths in the country. UA doesn't care much about LAX-SEA because there's little to care about from their perspective.
Originally Posted by
spin88
United was the
#1 carrier at LAX,
#1 at SFO,
#1 (or
#2 to DL for a while) at PDX, and
#2 at SEA. They also had a major presence in secondary markets. the BKR period (2004-2010) and growth by WN lead to an erosion of UA's possition, but when CO's lift was added, UA was c2011 in a position to dominate the West.... instead they went with "changes you will like"
At this point, the opportunity is long gone. DL has spent a lot of $$$ and has a much stronger brand, and has overtaken UA at LAX, while adding a major presence at SEA. they have also added a lot of extra shuttle flights up and down the west coast, as well as substantially expanded SFO service. AS/VX is also going to make a major play - including at SFO. At this point, DL is the main west coast network carrier, WN has a lot of service, as does AS/VX. Outside of SFO, United is not a go to carrier, and given its poor reputation for service and its generally third rate product, adding more flights would just further depress load factor and PRASM.
UA hasn't been the #2 carrier at SEA in at least 10 years, and that #2 was way behind AS and grouped up with WN, with a small gap to the rest of the pack.
UA hasn't been higher than #3 at PDX at any point in the last 10+ years. DL has never been higher than #3 either in that time frame. They've been trading #3 and #4 for years.
DL mainline is only about 20% larger at SFO now than immediately after the NW acquisition, and that's with large expansions at SEA and SFO. In other words, their "growth" at SFO is small and not for the SFO customer.
DL is well behind UA in West Coast size. Clearly they are still the main West Coast network carrier and the go-to for SFO. Only AS and WN can also say about a West Coast airport.
Originally Posted by
spin88
LAX-SEA is a major market, and running one or two RJs (for a while CRJ-200s) was a great way to lose corporate accounts as well as FFers on the west coast. Not running routes like this (or LAX-YVR or LAX-PDX) was a good part of the reason UA is now firmly back in third place ex-LAX.
So is not flying LAX-ORD/IAH. Or LAX-MSP. Or LAX-ATL/PDX. (UA has a LAX-YVR flight)
Originally Posted by
Kacee
IMO the big hole in California for UA is OAK. DL, AA, AS, B6, BA, and of course WN with a huge operation, are all there.
I wouldn't be surprised to see OAK-DEN/ORD/IAH someday, in the same vein as the return to SJC.