If UA is cutting flights, I strongly suspect they'll make cuts to their DCA-EWR route. They're operating these flights almost every half-hour at peak times using CRJ550s, some of the lowest-capacity planes in the UAX fleet. Which might be nice for customers (more space!) if they actually departed roughly on time. But, in my experience, these flights start running into cascading delays around 2-4 PM because (a) EWR (airport and ATC) is jammed and (b) United simply doesn't have enough gate space at DCA, so it's an abject cluster of UA ground staff trying to load these flights while arriving planes wait on the tarmac.
As a passenger who would otherwise strongly consider DCA-EWR-XXX connections, especially international, I won't do it with such an unreliable operation. Which, I suspect, undermines the whole strategy of running high-frequency, low-capacity flights on that route ("See, there's a flight right when you need it!").
If UA cuts DCA-EWR flights by two-thirds but upgrades to a 737-800/900, they could move just as many people in likely a more timely manner.
(Or they could be real heroes and start running a 752 EWR-DCA-SFO.)
Last edited by ezefllying; Jun 23, 2022 at 2:58 pm