Just announced, United Airlines will be adding up to 28 daily nonstop flights to their service. Four Florida destinations: Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Orlando (MCO), Tampa (TPA), and Fort Myers (RSW) will now have straight through access to popular destinations in the Northeast and Midwest.
Beginning on November 6th, customers traveling to and from Florida will now be better connected to Boston (BOS), Cleveland (CLE), New York/LaGuardia (LGA).
Starting December 17th, we will see even more routes added to the roster. Additional flights from Columbus (CMH), Indianapolis (IND), Milwaukee (MKE), and Pittsburgh (PIT) will connect with Fort Myers (RSW) and Tampa (TPA). Tickets for these new routes are now available for purchase and reflected on United’s website.
Although these changes are exciting, they are merely seasonal. As of now these new routes will only last through January 10th, 2021. And as you might have already guessed, this change is in response to COVID-19. It’s part of United Airlines’ effort to manage the impact of the pandemic by responding to customer demand.
Historically, the Chicago-based carrier has only added new flights between cities and one of its seven hubs around the U.S. However, the pandemic has disrupted the travel industry and every way possible. Airline carriers are scrambling to get potential customers on flights while remaining in competition with one another.
“The addition of these new flights represents United’s largest expansion of point-to-point, non-hub flying and reflects our data driven approach to add capacity where customers are telling us they want to go,” said Ankit Gupta, United’s vice president of Domestic Network Planning. “We look forward to offering customers in the Midwest and Northeast more options to fly nonstop to Florida this winter.”
This is exciting news for customers, and hopefully will be a positive turning point for United Airlines. A map of these new routes is drawn out below.
Courtesy United