Man, as if UA couldn't just stop messing with people.

It'll be my last flight with UA, finally was able to find a good reason to burn a RPU for IAD-JFK-LAX (with specific booking for the PS route), and the upgrade cleared.

Now, they have the audacity to re-route me IAD-ORD-LAX and to add insult to injury, they only applied the RPU to IAD-ORD and left ORD-LAX in Y; like I give a crap about using my RPU for that. They don't even have the decency to put me in First for ORD-LAX after taking me out of a PS BF seat.

Sigh...

The decision to cut aside, why less than 5 weeks notice?

Sorry, but you don't keep 4 daily flights around to feed one onward departure. That's simply ridiculous.

And if things fall apart at 7:30pm you can still get to JFK for the 22:10 departure. But, again, planning the NYC operations around DXB as a destination is rather silly.
Sure they did. It was so horrible in loads/yields that it was oft considered an easy upgrade for Silver elites on a 735 (8 F seats). No surprise that it disappeared.
They fly it ~2x daily.

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Despite all the hand-wringing and fretting here the market there is not particularly large. LGA isn't too far away on the NYC side and the mass transit options aren't all that much worse than JFK, particularly now with the new Q70 bus.

The IAD-JFK route was horribly unreliable. I've had agents strongly suggest that I not bother rebooking on that when other flights in the area were delayed knowing full well that it would be amongst the first to be sacrificed when further cuts were needed (and they were correct every time).

http://gallery.millerworks.net/photo...-24f8GFx-L.jpg

Pretending that taking the flight delayed more than half the time and an average of 78 minutes to make a ~90 minute connection to the IAD-DXB flight is about as silly as pretending that the JFK-IAD route should be kept around for the IAD-DXB feed. LGA isn't that far away and can easily absorb those passengers.

Regarding NYC being the financial capital and WAS being the political capital, I've done the trip a few times, and prefer Acela Express. (Sure, I wish it was a maglev, but it's good enough.)
Union Street Station is 10-15 minute walk to the Capitol. And more convenient on the outbound - can pick up the train at Penn Station, which is easier to get to from Wall Street (or midtown) than EWR, JFK, or LGA. AND I have the other options (Newark Penn, Metropark).

JFK-IAD isn't enough for UA. IF they had a larger presence in JFK (IAD, IAH, ORD, BOS, maybe even a couple of international flights,) than this would be a bigger loss. But as the only non-p.s. route, with a hub close enough geographically that works just as well for connecting pax, and serves O&D better for some and the same for some, it really isn't that much of a loss

Interesting to hear everyone's thoughts.

Bottom line though, it is another reduction in the United route network that definitely affects some customers - with P.S. service and Star Alliance impacts.

The only two times I took this flight in the past two years ended with them calling me a taxi to drive me to EWR after delays caused onward missed connections.

And the only reason I was taking it is because I was travelling with someone going back to LA and it allowed us to share a cab and have more time together, lounge, etc.

Otherwise I can't imagine why I would want to take this flight when plentiful nonstops out of LGA were available (which I normally use via DL), and I have always wondered why on earth it existed.

Could it be that they are dropping this route to start another? Could IAH be resurrected?

Should we expect upgauging on the LGA-IAD route as a result? These flights were generally full from my experience, though a fair amount of that was nonrev.

Flying to a 3rd NYC airport from IAH? Highly doubtful.

This route ONLY made sense in ththe PMUA days when the TATL Hub is at DC

With a major hub at EWR and a plethora of LGA-IAD flights, the JFK-IAD flight made no sense anymore.

I really hope UA can consider adding p.s. Frequencies (temporarily with PMCO 752s before ultimately putting in a true 28J bird)

DEN or ORD is more likely if UA wants to feed *A airlines such as South Africa Airlines.

Not likely as they already code share with Jetblue.

Does this thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...k-liberty.html suggest that moving p.s. to EWR is a possibility?

No, totally unrelated.

Everyone needs to get over PS coming to EWR at some point...it's just not a premium airport/destination relative to JFK.

Plus, UA owns EWR (figuratively), so they have little incentive to offer a super-premium product TCON (compared to JFK, where the stakes, and competitors, are much higher).

Bottom line: If they kept flying unprofitable routes just to please 'some customers', then we could restart the thread about 'How soon will UA re-enter bankruptcy'.