AM PDX-IAD cancelled for most of July
 

I just got a schedule change notice that my morning non-stop PDX-IAD 8am-3:58pm has been cancelled after July 3 and won't resume until August 1.
It seems kind of strange this flight would stop for a peak summer month to the Pacific Northwest which connects with the main European bank at IAD.
Anyone have more information?

They are running a redeye 10:55pm-6:53am. Though nobody asked me, this seems to not make as much sense. I guess it connects to some mid Atlantic and east coast destinations and the morning London flight.

Probably a casualty of the MAX grounding. Another has been the morning LAX to CLE flight.

Possibly - but would it not have been eliminated sooner?

As PDX-IAD is / has been an A320 route, the MAX impact is indirect and speculative at best

Yes, but I think it's generally true that UA might be trying to increase utilization out of its entire narrowbody fleet while the MAX is grounded. Taking a plane, an A320 in this case, and flying it through the night instead of parking it overnight, increases the utilization of that particular fleet. The cumulative effect of all fleets being better utilized helps offset the capacity loss from the MAX grounding.

But why, now, the schedule change? Because July is now six-weeks away, and that's when schedules often get the "final touch". It may be that the schedule prior to now was preliminary, and it might not have completely factored-in the impacts of the MAX grounding... until now.

Or UA decided during a peak summer month the A320 could be more effectively used elsewhere for multiple other reasons, Seems there are two situations and folks are trying to draw a connection on no other information which may or may not be relevant,

The 739 (MAX or not) is 30% more seats than A320 -- so not a particularly good replacement. A320 is more of a 738 equivalent

UA announced additional MAX cancelations today.

Unless you think UA was only putting the MAX on the most marginal routes, it seems dubious at best to think the medium-term narrowbody flights cancelled from the grounding would be those originally scheduled on the MAX.

This is directly related to the MAX. It is a snow ball effect. For example I have an E-175 shifted to as CRJ. The e-175 is taking over for a 319.

319 is replacing a 738 and the 738 is replacing a MAX. This happened this week as the schedule adjustments were made system wide. Cancellations allow aircraft shifts and the PDX-IAD is an example. Goes back to original schedule on Aug 1 for my above example along with over 300 others. My example starts with a IAD-GSP shift.

What TATL destinations can someone get to from PDX through IAD that they can't also get to by connecting at ORD or EWR?

Load factor is far less important than PRASM for the flight. To give a simple e.g. would you rather run a full flight at 6 c/mi or a 80% full flight at 9 c/mi. United will right size a flight not for demand for for a combo of demand + PRASM. I doubt that PDX-IAD gets a lot of high value (last minute and non-discount F) fares. So when UA needs to address the lack of 14 MAX9s, plus with delivery of 20 MAX9s in the fleet plan for 2019, they were probably planning on having another 6-7 by the summer. So UA is having to find a way to remove enough flights to make up for 20 or so A/C that they are missing.

So this flight gets the ax.

Here's a story on the MAX cancellations.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/united-airlines-extends-cancellations-boeing-190744331.html