Originally Posted by
sxf24
The airline has precious little goodwill (unlike UA or AS had) to carry them through a "summer from hell."
UA didn't have much goodwill left by the end of the 2000 SFH - and indeed, there were some permanent shifts in traffic flows in many markets, including Newark (where United's "legacy" premium flyers finally jumped to CO, finally making CO the king of EWR), Los Angeles (where UA went from the dominant hub player to a form of multi-carrier cohabitation in the market), London (MIA/EWR/JFK-LHR all gone, as the premium flyers had abandoned ship to other players once United couldn't keep a schedule) to the Chicago hub itself (where AA went from being a clear also-ran to roughly equal with United in many major ex-ORD markets). All of this was manifested in the sharp declines in revenue performance United experienced BEFORE 9/11, and indeed the 2000 SFH and its aftermath were on the primary elements of United's BK filing.