They kept several large corporate functions in Houston and never moved them to Chicago as well, and they have hired and are planning to hire 1,000s more of non-flight personnel in Houston as well. A large part of senior route planners, HR, finance, and customer experience reps stayed in Houston along with the normal corporate reps and trainers that would stay anyway.

The corporate office stuff is a bit overblown. Plenty of companies have small corporate locations and their majority of ops somewhere else for a variety of reasons.

As for the rumour on this hublet, there is more chatter on the a.nets and pilot forums of the world, but very little from insiders. Also, pilots are not great sources for corporate news. They are often the last to learn of things.

In addition to the MCO, FLL, TPA, and HNLs of that have been bandied about, San Juan is now being bandied about. The more humorous suggestions I have seen are MEM, MCI, OKC, BNA, GSP, RDU, and JAX....

I still think it is doubtful unless someone goes chapter 7.

UA HQ not moving.
And yes, several functions did move out to Elk Grove Village, as they expand that site near ORD.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/airl...icago-pritzker

Yes, and I never said it was, just that 1,000s of corporate folks stayed in Houston and they are expanding much in that regard in the area. Though the deal with Illinois is only binding for two years ;-) . My point was many corporate functions never left Houston and are still there and UA is expanding in Houston as they are in Denver; And of course their ops in Chicago and burbs as well are growing. Regardless, corporate location is not as big of a deal these days as people make it out to be. Some goofballs online (not on FT) are even intimating that this vague rumour means the HQs is moving to Florida along with a new hub...neither of which will be happening in my opinion.

I quoted you but was not responding to you directly, more the overall gist of the thread and VFTW.
:tu:

EWR-MIA in '22/'23 consistently had ~5+ GS on it for any of the 2-3 dozen weekday flights I took. Never saw that the handful of times i took EWR-FLL/PBI.

IIRC United has some ownership of Avianca, maybe that could lead to something for FLL/MIA but there isn't much space (and lots of layout problems, UA check-in is in the wrong location relative to their gates at MIA)

I fly EWR-FLL all the time and it has a lot of GS & 1K.

I’d like the FLL rumor to be true. Great terminal, easy airport. Other than Caribbean, don’t forget MEX/TQO/CUN/PVR options, BOG/CTG and even GRU (Azul flies FLL-VCP) and GIG (one can dream!). UA would need immigration facilities in T1, but perhaps that’s part of the build / rumor?

I agree with you. I'm not really seeing a case for a hub down there. And I'm not seeing some large business development area that might give UA an edge. Atlanta and Charlotte are growing but are hubs for others.

Maybe this is all a bad idea. With no clear airport available, maybe UA should invest its money and time in expansion at SFO and DEN? I would one to see more tpac/tatl routes!

UA in the past has not been based on premium leisure. However, the airline industry has changed. Not just due to COVID, but also businesses no longer paying for J. The old "no first class" policies have become "no business class". Airlines adapted before and are adapting again.

A single premium leisure hub to a high demand area for premium leisure (such as HNL) may work today where it hasn't worked before

I'll play, why not. A couple of years ago I would have completely dismissed such a suggestion but given the way things have evolved in the market and with Kirby's forward thinking I can imagine this being considered. It goes against everything United has done strategically in the past, where UA doesn't operate focus cities like DL or AA do, but the more I think about it the more there is some logic here.

Considering:
-The population/money which has moved into Florida & the South
-The financial weakness of NK & B6
-The relative weakness of AA vs UA
-UA being behind DL/AA to South America/the Caribbean largely due to lack of a SE hub
-The opportunities the A321 brings to serve South America

MCO or FLL would seem to be the two real options. Would take a 10+ year build, and I don't know what it would take to get the facilities in each airport, since UA doesn't run focus cities and would want to pump 100+ daily flights through it eventually.

FLL keeps getting mentioned and yet, there's no space for expansion. So how can this become a hub for UA if they're going to pump 100+ daily flights out of there?

Don't worry, all UA has to do is brand EWR-FLL as "New York/Newark-Miami/Ft. Lauderdale". :D

I was in FLL a few days ago and toured the A, B and C concourses. There seems to be a lot of underutilized gates.

My only concern is the United Club there, I frequent it often (I live south of MIA but much prefer the experience of flying out of FLL). There are also plans to connect T2 to T1 which would mean the United Club would now also start seeing all the Air Canada passengers, so if all these rumors come true, that poor lounge is going to quickly go over capacity.

United urgently Needs a hub/focus city in the southeast, I love United and will continue having my loyalty with them, but I'm getting tired of flying through EWR/ORD/IAH to get anywhere haha.

Near Term: (as someone mentioned above) - build in T1-T2 and put gates there, max out the utilization of the T1A gates, which seem under-utilized currently. It's not much, but it's a start.
Medium-Long Term: FLL really needs a midfield terminal over near the tower/VIP/private jet area. Not sure if that's even possible. You are right that it's certainly space-limited now.

That's what Azul already does :) And with a 30-40 min Uber; Brightline train connector bus etc, why not? :)

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...339a1b5036.png

Create a *A lounge in the T1-T2 connector :)
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Personally, I'd also like to see FLL TATL by UA, but I don't think that would work (Norwegian tried FLL-BCN, and failed).