das

Probably because there is more frequency in Houston, and more capacity from the competition there. IIRC, EUG-SFO frequency went down with the shift from mainline to RJ.

markryanmiller

OK, I'm excited and can hardly believe this! I moved from SFO to EUG and never thought I'd see this happen. I think I'll take a flight just to experience the new service. The Skywest crews are OK, but it would really be nice to be on a 737.

There are a lot of business travelers that come and go out of here, as well as all the folks visiting the university, athletics, etc. I wonder if this is in preparation for the Olympic track trials this summer. Maybe they're expecting a lot of business coming through?

If anyone wants to come through EUG, I'm sure we can arrange a welcoming committee. The food at the airport restaurant is pretty good. I'd recommend it.

PDXPremier

You may be on to something as far as the track trials this summer...I thought I read somewhere about the 737s being large enough to stow some of the equipment that would be brought to the competition, such as poll vaults which would I guess be too long for RJs...just cross your fingers that the 737 service doesn't go away after the summer...at least you're not like MFR where the 737s turned into EMBs...talk about capacity reduction

mauiUAflyer

LOL! Quote of the Day, mahasamatman!

markryanmiller

From looking at the schedule it looks like 737 service starts on March 30th. Just my luck that I need to go down there before they switch planes.

JohnnyP

I find it odd that cities like EUG are getting mainline service, while routes between two fairly important west coast cities (LAX-PDX, for example) have all but been reduced to UX service.

noah

A lot of it has to do with competition and of course where they think they can make money.

United is clearly the leader in SFO, and with other carriers like VX growing they're doing what they can to stay the leader -- adding capacity on routes where they think they can make money like SFO-EUG.

At LAX, however, they're not fighting for leadership. Clearly they think that 737 can make more money flying SFO-EUG or elsewhere compared with PDX-LAX, which has both Express Jet (DL) and AS on the route.

PDXPremier

My solution to avoid UX on the LAX-PDX run is to fly mainline PDX-SFO-LAX (you get a few hundred extra miles or an extra segment if you're a segment person and you don't have to sit on an RJ for 2 hours)....just watch out for the occassional "flow control" issues w/SFO

das

UA has more competition for frequency on LAX-PDX than on SFO-EUG.

rch4u

... because United does not have infinite resources to dump capacity at competitors' fortress hubs. Why doesn't Continental try to "outdo" United at SFO? Same reason.

prismwiz

Is there even a jetway at EUG?

I actually like EUG, I'm down there a few weeks a year during the summer and could not think of a better place to be. Now EUG has PDX on UX, DEN on UX, and SFO on UA.

To the person that said UA should add SLE-SFO on an EMB120, they can't. UX has retired all EMB120's but 5 from the UA system. The 5 run at-risk routes like SEA-GEG/PDX, PDX-MFR/RDM/EUG, RDM-SFO and so on. Any EMB120 route on UA now is at-risk run by Skywest. That is why routes like LAX-SNA were ended, pay-per departure UX EMB120 flights were pulled.

Intresting fact, UA now has the same amount of seats on SEA-LAX as they do on EUG-SFO (4X 737). This flights are also the only mainline flights that EUG has. (with the exception of G4).

So the real question is, what routes get their 737's replaced with CR2's for this?

greg999

Living in Eugene I'm looking forward to this as well.

PDXPremier

Huh? UX has to be running more than 5 EMB120's....UX uses them for more than just routes out of PDX and SEA...SFO, for instances, has a ton of EMB120's flights that would easily require more than 5 planes...SFO-SMF, SFO-MOD, SFO-FAT, SFO-SBA, and so on....I don't think the EMBs are going away anytime soon

UAX@SFO

As it stands now, the 4x daily 737 service SFO-EUG is loaded only through the beginning of September (the exact date escapes me), after which, the 737s disappear and are replaced by the current set of 7 daily departures with a mix of CRJs and CR7s.

As a single year-round flight requires the entire station to be ground handled by United mainline staff, and my colleagues in EUG were sent to UA below-wing training, it sounds like this change will be seasonal and due in part to the 2008 Olympic Track and Field Trials... however depending on loads and such - a more permanent change is certainly not out of the picture.

Eugene has several jetways... and they were just replaced with new ones in January, even...

The renegotiated contract with United removed 7 EMB-120s from United contract flying at the beginning of January, which did end LAX-SNA and LAX-ONT. A few were retired, but most were reflowed into SkyWest's at-risk flying within the United Express system, which includes the entire intra-Pacific Northwest UAX flying, as well as several destinations out of both LAX and SFO hubs. As of this month, we still have 46 EMB-120s operating under the UAX contract (though this is not separated out between UAX contract flying and UAX at-risk flying).

markryanmiller, Wings is quite a good restaurant... I've enjoyed it myself

ddavault

I can only dream that UA would add service out of SLE to SFO or DEN. I can stand on my patio and watch the planes approach the airport from the south. I've been trying to make Delta's new flights work for me and so far I haven't been able to put anything together that would create better connections or travel time than just driving to PDX or EUG, I even had Delta match my status on UA when they announced service in anticipation of throwing some business their way.