Originally Posted by threecap

I do business (and look for new businesses) mostly in secondary and tertiary US cities -- can anyone with an insider's understanding of scheduling/route decisions explain to me why United hasn't brought back a number of regional routes from EWR that they previously ran, even during COVID?

I believe EWR direct service to/from XNA was stopped in April 2022 and was slated to come back in late September. But I haven't seen it added back yet in any future month.

PNS was cut as a direct route to/from EWR with COVID. UA also cut the ORD-PNS route in Jan 2021 but it has returned.

I'm using PNS and XNA as examples because both currently have direct service to/from DEN, ORD and IAH but not EWR (and selfishly because I need to travel to both, haha). Should we expect more direct regional routes from EWR if/when the labor shortage eases up? I'm sure profitability also plays a role, but it feels like between the beaches/military bases near PNS and Walmart/Ozarks in XNA, these are decent business-leisure combo destinations which helps demand, am I wrong? Does Terminal A's opening and available UA gates at EWR play a role in this, since so many regional routes used to use the old Terminal A?

Thank in advance for any insider views on whether/when I can expect to see these routes return to the EWR route map...

(Obligatory hopefully the schedule thread is the appropriate place for this question...)