ProudEdmontonian

Final flight October 25, 2014. Route 'underperforming' according to UA spokesperson (loads good, yields suspect I would imagine).

Flew it several times whenever I had to go to and from the eastern U.S. in order to avoid the Toronto Mahal and AC.

entropy

I find it hard to believe that the yields were bad. Yields relating to Canada tend to be substantially higher than domestic US...

you might have to change your handle back..

mahasamatman

Canada overall is being trivialized by United. Half of the SFO-YVR mainline flights and the one CR7 are all going CRJ, too.

SamuelS

Very surprised to see this as the flight was consistently very heavily booked. While full planes don't necessarily translate into profitable planes, there is doubtless plenty of demand and this would appear to be a yield management issue more than a lack of demand issue.

I never know what to believe anymore. The YMM-DEN flight was apparently started with a revenue guarantee from several corporate accounts. The whole point was that UA had a guarantee that the route would be break even just by running the flight. Yet the flight didn't last long and was cancelled within the year of launch.

I do know that a number of large corporate accounts in YYC were having their corporate TA's actively book away from UA this summer due to the UA ground staff all being let go and the operational issues that came with the new ground handler. UA's operational reliability - particularly for UX ops - has been terrible transborder. Cancellations and major delays on DL, AC, WS are the exception to the rule. On UA, it's an every day occurrence. Hardly the secret sauce for maintaining premium business travel.

ProudEdmontonian

Nah, AA is making some great moves (YEG-DFW daily and YEG-LAX starting Oct.2) and FI is tarring and feathering AC for European trips means that money changers like AC and its revenue-sharing accomplices at UA are being driven from the "temple!"

Although it is weird that UA would do this particularly since I understand they had at least 1 1/2 years to go with their EIA subsidy. They did the same in their CO days terminating IAH only to reinstitute it and then increase it in the winter to 2 flights daily (the red-eye restarts in October so maybe they need the Airbus for that route?)

As for YMM-DEN, UA was joined in ending transborder earlier last week by WestJet, which cancelled its YMM-LAS service abruptly only a few months in.

respectable_man

I sometimes wonder if UA is stepping too hard on AC's toes on some Canada-US routes, and AC quietly asks UA to step back.