timfountain

Yes, the 'alleged' pilot shortage is starting to be realized at the bottom of the ladder, especially with the new ATP rules combined with McDonald's wages....

mduell

IIRC the new UA pilot contract allows 5% of hub-hub flights (so maybe 2% of seats) to be UX.

SamuelS

Interesting. With the continued increase in UX flying, would seem that this can only become a more prevalent longer term issue affecting overall UA network reliability.

Seeing UX on longer and longer (former mainline only) routes, e.g. Mesa operating IAH-YYC (1750 miles).

trk1

Post 532 is incorrect. United is flying less regional aircraft and flights than in past years. 60% to 40% regional lowest in years. Also offered miles on regional are down and mainline has increased. This trend will continue all year with the fleet change of retired regional and additional mainline and E175's replacing smaller regional

SamuelS

Fair enough. How many total seats have gone down percentage wise with UX (e.g. larger regional jets such as E175's replacing smaller ones such as CRJ)?

3Cforme

Passengers care about seat-miles more than flight counts. (Will I be in a UAX aircraft? Will it be a long flight?)

Mainline doesn't show consistent annual growth from 2011. Express has a year of growth and two years of shrinkage in ASM. Express/mainline is pretty consistent as a fraction.

Maybe wholesale exit from Express flying will come - but it hasn't yet, not systemwide.

Ann reps and traffic reports (AFAI have looked) don't show the breakdown between single-class and two-class Express flying.

trk1

Feb traffic numbers:

passengers:
Mainline: 2015 6392000 2014 6374000
Reg 3077000 3269000

Passenger Miles

Mainline 11952000 11851000
Reg 174000 1837000

PaulInTheSky

When I was in MSP for a couple of months, I tried to stick with UA, but it was pretty tough:

MSP-EWR -> ERJ-145
MSP-DEN -> CRJ-700
MSP-IAH -> ERJ-145

Ironically, services to the shorter ORD are almost all mainline except maybe one or two daily.

Not to mention LAX or SFO. Because of that, I tried to avoid non-stop LAX or SFO as much as possible.

CMK10

I'm glad to see RDU is going to be getting some EMB-175s on flights to IAH (just over 1,000 miles). That route has been mainly ER4 for too long.

spin88

This is very, very misleading. United has (since 2012) moved widebodies from domestic to international, and then cut the size of its narrow-body fleet. Seat counts have gone down rather dramatically DOMESTICALLY, and mainline (narrowbody) seat counts have only stayed up in the last year due to cramming more seats into the Airbus fleet. The 739ERs have not replaced the retired 752s seat for seat.

The RJ fleet has stayed consistent until very very recently, and seat count has gone up (due to cramming more seats into the CRJ700s). There is a slight trend down in total seats now, but its mostly been driven by props being retired, not the ERJ-145/CRJ200/700s that are the mainstay of the COdbaUA fleet.

Overall the picture domestically has not changed very much in RJ vs. Mainline seats, which is very very different than on DL which has dramatically "upgraged" over the last few years.

In the coming year we will see some changes, but this has more to due with (1) UAL deciding to keep the 757s longer, (2) probably buying a few used 738s, and (3) retiring some smaller RJs due to pilot shortages, they are future, not past, changes...

exerda

Didn't see a better thread for this (it's the opposite situation, mainline over express!)... but in searching for flight options on a changed flight last night, I noticed a mainline (A319) flight on HDN-IAD, UA1079.

Steamboat Springs CO to Dulles? I know it's getting into ski season, but that seems a strange flight to run mainline, much less nonstop to IAD.

Air Houston

Not surprising at all. HDN is a great market for UA. They need mainline to have capacity for all the extra checked luggage and ski gear.

DA201

I didn't see a thread of this, so I thought I would start one.

UA flies some routes which are flights lasting at least 2 hours on 50 seat planes (which is ridiculous). Here are some routes that I personally know are flown with smaller jets that could easily be flown with fewer frequencies but larger planes.

EWR-STL (2.75-3 hour flight): Currently flow by 5 daily ERJ 145's. Could be changed to 1 daily 737 and 2 daily EMB 175's or 4 daily EMB 170's (WN currently flies 2 daily 737s on this route)
EWR-BNA (2.5 hour flight): Currently flown by 5 daily ERJ 145's and 1 daily EMB 170. Could be 4 daily EMB 175's or 3 daily 737's (WN currently flies 2 daily 737's on this route)
EWR-IND (2.25 hour flight): Currently flown by 4 daily EWR 145's and 3 daily EMB 170's. Could be 4 daily 737's
ORD-YUL (2-2.25 hour flight): Currently flown by 5 daily ERJ 145/CRJ 200's and 5 daily Air Canada ERJ 175's. UA flights could be changed to 1 daily 737 and 2 daily EMB 175's or 4 daily EMB 170's (AA currently flies 2 daily CRJ's on this route)

Anyone else know any of these such routes?

hookthem

You can't just replace RJ's with 737's

phxrsng

I think a lot of people would prefer, in general, schedule flexibility to upgauging for a lot of those routes. At the very least, I wouldn't say so plainly that they could be swapped to larger frames.