dshafiee

Any idea when mainline returns? F fares are out of control on this route, not to mention many lower fare buckets are gone.

Repooc17

It's been that way for a while now; not just as of July 1.

You can alleviate the cost by flying with Spirit or Frontier - both offer nonstop services. If not them, then AA, which has something like 10 nonstops per day, so something should cater to your liking from a schedule perspective. Fares are probably similar between AA and UA.

Most domestic routes are now near, at, or have exceeded normal passenger volume. From airlines' perspectives, they have the upper hand at this moment, so it's not surprising UA, for example, is not dumping excess capacity if it can make more $ by selling every last seat, even some at exorbitant prices. If passengers are willing to pay for those price levels, airlines are not going to change a thing.

drewguy

^ Well yes and no. United has an incentive to add flights/seats so long as they can sell them at the currently high prices. If they’re not adding flights it’s because the project they won’t sell enough additional tickets to make it profitable.

mduell

Other than UAL 743 on the first, there's no mainline on the schedule until September 8.

Either a placeholder schedule, or waiting for back to school for the business demand to return.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

IAH-DFW is also (mostly) RJs - today 7 RJs, one mainline.

mahasamatman

Not a good bet. Most companies are realizing that a huge swath of business travel is no longer necessary (the vast majority was before as well, but they wouldn't admit it).

EWR764

It’s funny that Scott is always talking about UA flying RJs between DFW and ORD (or EWR and ATL) when discussing gauge problems when he got to United in 2016, but here we are in 2021, with domestic traffic at pre-pandemic levels, and we still see predominantly UAX in these markets.

tcdtcd

But IAH is 225 mi and ORD is 800 mi. Apples and oranges.

dshafiee

Yes, pre Covid UA was back to almost all mainline DFW ORD with them all being full. DFW IAH was mostly Express.

175s are one thing but most of the schedule are 170 with Y invertory down to E and H buckets.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I am just pointing out UA has decided to use mostly RJs in/out of DFW. Even to/from SFO. Not discussing distance, discussing a/c types.

rolltribe

give it a few months. flew this route weekly for about 2 years pre-covid. routinely had F and E+ sold out on A320's, with 75+ on the upgrade list for rush hour flights. Same goes for other ORD-> AA hub routes like PHL and CLT on UA.

tcdtcd

I was just saying I’d be more tolerant of a 225mi RJ and less tolerant of an 800 mi 2hr plus RJ. That is all.
And UA needs to compete with AA/DL on their hub flights to UA hubs (per Kirby).
ORD is both!

dshafiee

As did I and you are correct! Even SDC on D fare was tough!