This happens every winter. When I worked for the regionals, we would always gain routes back from mainline come fall into winter until mainline took them back in the spring. Now that I am at mainline, we look for profitability and some of these routes would be over served while our airplanes are better utilized going to Florida and the Caribbean during the winter time as traffic picks up down there.
So imma LRSE in the river city. We experienced this with UA taking away our ML Houston for a short period. When this happen all of us were confused on why ML did that. It’s always full and the load factor is again a feeder to the Caribbean from us. Over this summer they made it a 175 and now that the holidays and winter is here there making it a 737-700 again which is fine. That flight will always be full
Keep in mind - Parts supplies have also become a major problem for both Boeing and Airbus customers over the last few years. Between required maintenance schedules and lack of parts availability there have been a non-zero number of airlines around the world which have had to park planes pending parts deliveries. So - Could be another possibility beyond seasonal and profitability-driven concerns.
I'm surprised you missed the major factor at play here. Boeing has issued a 6 month delivery delay on all 737 MAX aircraft. So really United could have been planning on getting MAX for spring of 2025 and these aircraft are to come online as the the A319 gets retired. The other factor you can look into is March tends to be busy with Spring Break travel. Places like San Diego, or Florida become places where Spring breakers go. Also March is the NCAA March Madness tournament and THREE United Hubs (San Francisco, Denver, and Newark) are all 1st/2nd round host cities. This means United is most likely preparing extra main line aircraft to be available to handle the larger influxes of fans into said cities.
So I work for UA/UGE as a LRSE in RVA it’s about profitability…for example they took away our main line Houston flight over the spring/summer and made it a 175 but now they’re bringing it back as a main line flight because we kinda do need that because our Houston flights are always full and it’s becoming a RON instead of a turn from over the summer like it originally was. Our load factor is quite heavy. You should look at Norfolk. They are all main lines. I had a nice discussion about this with my general manager, actually on why United does this.
That is not Mx, or charter. Mx is a 1 for 1 process, they take one out for a A/B/C/D check only when another is done. And charters don't mean cancelling routes, but rather a few frequncies. It's also slow season for charters (sports lull in the spring) and anyways sports charters are known well in advance. What's happening here is one of a few things, just a re-allocation and you can't tell where the capacity is being added back yet. Or it will all pop back up on the schedule with time(they're not bookable right now for some reason or another). Or finally the last option is UA is reducing capacity to have better schedule slack to improve dispatch reliability (doubtful)
More videos exactly like this. Good job.
This happens every winter. When I worked for the regionals, we would always gain routes back from mainline come fall into winter until mainline took them back in the spring. Now that I am at mainline, we look for profitability and some of these routes would be over served while our airplanes are better utilized going to Florida and the Caribbean during the winter time as traffic picks up down there.
So imma LRSE in the river city. We experienced this with UA taking away our ML Houston for a short period. When this happen all of us were confused on why ML did that. It’s always full and the load factor is again a feeder to the Caribbean from us. Over this summer they made it a 175 and now that the holidays and winter is here there making it a 737-700 again which is fine. That flight will always be full
Keep in mind - Parts supplies have also become a major problem for both Boeing and Airbus customers over the last few years. Between required maintenance schedules and lack of parts availability there have been a non-zero number of airlines around the world which have had to park planes pending parts deliveries. So - Could be another possibility beyond seasonal and profitability-driven concerns.
I'm surprised you missed the major factor at play here. Boeing has issued a 6 month delivery delay on all 737 MAX aircraft. So really United could have been planning on getting MAX for spring of 2025 and these aircraft are to come online as the the A319 gets retired.
The other factor you can look into is March tends to be busy with Spring Break travel. Places like San Diego, or Florida become places where Spring breakers go. Also March is the NCAA March Madness tournament and THREE United Hubs (San Francisco, Denver, and Newark) are all 1st/2nd round host cities. This means United is most likely preparing extra main line aircraft to be available to handle the larger influxes of fans into said cities.
So I work for UA/UGE as a LRSE in RVA it’s about profitability…for example they took away our main line Houston flight over the spring/summer and made it a 175 but now they’re bringing it back as a main line flight because we kinda do need that because our Houston flights are always full and it’s becoming a RON instead of a turn from over the summer like it originally was. Our load factor is quite heavy. You should look at Norfolk. They are all main lines. I had a nice discussion about this with my general manager, actually on why United does this.
The video for today!
Cool that you were able to cover this 👍
These are probably just winter seasonal reductions and/or adjustments.
Except they're schedule changes in March, April and May and not winter season
Why Ashville? Do you pay attention to the news? Ashville and surrounds were washed away in a hurricane.
That is not Mx, or charter. Mx is a 1 for 1 process, they take one out for a A/B/C/D check only when another is done. And charters don't mean cancelling routes, but rather a few frequncies. It's also slow season for charters (sports lull in the spring) and anyways sports charters are known well in advance.
What's happening here is one of a few things, just a re-allocation and you can't tell where the capacity is being added back yet. Or it will all pop back up on the schedule with time(they're not bookable right now for some reason or another). Or finally the last option is UA is reducing capacity to have better schedule slack to improve dispatch reliability (doubtful)
Did you know that united airlines has a fleet page has some interesting information what happens