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United Airlines Will Let Passengers Avoid Trump Airport And Switch To Miami Or Fort Lauderdale For Free - Live and Let's Fly (liveandletsfly.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/aviation@lemmy.world
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United Airlines is preparing for customers who may object to flying into an airport named for President Donald Trump, and reservation agents have been authorized to move those passengers to Fort Lauderdale or Miami without charging more.

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[–] 4 points 3 months ago* (5 children)

United does not have a hub in Fort Lauderdale. IAD or IAH are probably the closest hubs to Fort Lauderdale; that’s DC and Texas respectively.

Not to detract from your point. Publicly traded companies are self-serving by design, and this is no exception. It is still a risky move to do anything that is seen as poking the Trump bear though. It’s definitely a calculation.

Fun fact, speaking of IAH and DC, and its other airport DCA. both were renamed after a former president, but neither had their three letter city code changed; something that is a massive and complicated undertaking.

PBI is the first airport to be renamed for/by a living serving president, and the first one whose city code had to be changed for the new name.

Pure fucking ego.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    United does not have a hub in Fort Lauderdale.

    It is in the process of building one after Spirit's bankruptcy and increasing regional demand. United is starting a direct flight from Los Angeles to FLL and is planning on using FLL as a base for flights to Africa and increased service to the Caribbean. Also, if United can push for a people mover to connect the airport to the nearby Brightline station, that would open up the entire Central and Southern Florida region via one United hub.

    I agree with everything else you said.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    It’s a big investment and expansion but I don’t think it’s a hub. More like a test balloon.

    I’m not close to this one but Delta did something very similar in MIA back in the early teens. I’m speculating at this point so if you’ve got better facts let me know, genuinely. I’m a relative insider but not close to network strategy or CRE so this is mildly informed speculation.

    First off, both Delta and United would love to have a hub that far south and east. Delta has ATL and United just has IAD and IAH. IAD needs relief for sure.

    Set aside trying to horn in on MIA (not totally infeasible as AA is weaker - especially on their international fleet if memory serves), the airport that makes the most sense by far is MCO - especially for United. But high rents and local costs are probably prohibitive.

    FLL is motivated to attract new tenants so it’s very likely that United has a deal with something like no landing fees for the first year - which is how Delta operated an LHR flight out of MIA for a year as a comparatively low cost experiment.

    This was all human generated by my faulty memory and very limited expertise in this area of aviation - so take it all with a grain of salt.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    The problem with MCO is that Orlando doesn't want a hub airport. The entire economy is based on tourism and having a hub doesn't help unless the hub is owned by the government.

    FLL needs a new tenant who could treat the airport like a hub. Delta has ATL and American has MIA. JetBlue has a presence there, but likely not enough to fill the lost capacity unless it gets a massive capital injection. That leaves United and Southwest.

    United is the airline that has the quickest ability to fill the void and has a long term route strategy which can use an airport like FLL, including off-loading some international traffic from IAD.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Yeah I think I agree with all of that, so it really does comes down to the semantics of the first statement.

    I would say pedantically it isn’t a hub yet, only the most likely next hub, but you’re right for the purposes of your original comment.

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