I don't know that this will make UA lower fares by much. It's an alternating days schedule.

USA3000 used to run an alternating days schedule CLE-RSW with cheapo $99 fares. They're now out of business...

So I successfully completed my r/t flights this week on DELTA out of CAK, paying $255 on a 10 day advance T-Fare buy; which was about $500 savings over closest UNITED could come, and considered outbound from CLE, CMH, CAK or DTW.

-Both flights were on MD-88
-I am a Silver Medallion on DELTA
-I was upgraded both flights (Tue and today)

The only things holding me to united as primary carrier are:
1) My CONTINENTAL loyalty (OnePass since 1988)
2) Continentals 24-hr "same day change" that United kept post merger
3) Easier use of my air miles earned.

But high United price and availibility continue to push me to other carriers as was the case this past week Delta, and next week on USAir.

Comparing airline-to-airline fares on trips with such short notice is problematic. Fare difference may not reflect different fare structures but rather only different seat availability. That said, if one doesn't have much notice, then one of course has to worry about inventory.

I've been flying from PIT, CMH & CAK ~75% of the time for a few years now rather than paying more than twice the price to fly out of CLE.

I live 30 mins from, CLE, 45 mins from CAK, and about 120 mins from CMH & PIT.

Being hub-captive stinks... but it probably won't last forever.

same here in CVG, delta offers very high price fly out of CVG, but very cheap in dayton!!! hate merge.

Oddly, lately fares from Houston have been consistently lower on UA than on AA. But flying to SAN or LAX or LAS usually US connecting in PHX is much cheaper. And if I wanted to drive to AUS (which is not even a remote possibility for me) I could almost always get a lower fare regardless of whether flying east or west.

on UAL this week for once out of CLE, hoping all goes well....

no connect thru ORD or IAD so I expect high probability travel will be smooth.

ORD likes to hand me off to DL, after they herd me over there from CLE and can't finish the job! (16 ORD to CLE flights per day, how high will it go?)

CAK is indeed in trouble.
Does anyone think that once WN fully integrates FL that they will continue to use 2-3 extremely valuable LGA slots to fly to CAK?

Because of the merger of CO and UA, I and other Akron-based CO-flyers now have the option of flying our airline of choice (COdbaUA) out of either CLE or CAK. That flexibility is a definite boon to us, though I personally have seldom found CAK fares to be "low cost" to the destinations to which I want to go, and thus have only used CAK for business travel. Being between airports, I can go to CLE easily and almost always do unless fellow-traveling business colleagues prefer CAK.

As for CLE's high fares, ironically my problem with CAK is that UA's fares there are often higher than at CLE! And if LCCs continue to migrate north, that's not going to help. Still, there is US as an option ex CAK. I can earn MP miles while avoiding UA's high fares.

RNE, at least until UA buys AA and moves to Oneworld.