United adds another new destination as smaller cities return to route map

22.10.2024 - 18:07 / thepointsguy.com

United Airlines may have dropped nearly 40 U.S. cities during the pandemic, but one of them will soon see service on the carrier once again.

The Chicago-based airline filed plans over the weekend to restart service to Butte, Montana, on Jan. 3, 2025, as first seen in Cirium schedules and later confirmed by a carrier spokesperson.

United Express affiliate SkyWest Airlines will operate the 578-mile daily flight from Denver. Travelers will be able to connect beyond Denver to hundreds of daily United flights from this fast-growing hub.

SkyWest will operate a 50-seat all-economy CRJ-200 on the new daily route. The flight will depart Denver at 8:20 p.m. and arrive in Butte at 10:24 p.m. The plane will remain overnight in Butte and depart the next day at 9:49 a.m. and land in Denver at 11:50 a.m.

This is big news for Butte, which lost United service in July 2022. That ended a short-lived stint in Butte for United, which added flights there in January 2022 but ended them just over six months later.

Now that United is back, Butte will be served by two airlines. Delta is the only commercial carrier flying currently from Butte, offering nonstop service to its hub in Salt Lake City on flights operated by regional partner SkyWest.

There's a little bit of inside baseball in terms of why United is coming back to Butte.

For one, the city is a subsidized market supported in part by the Essential Air Service program through the U.S. Department of Transportation. That means that United (and its competitors) receive subsidies in order to support flying routes that might otherwise be unprofitable.

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Originally, Butte had just one subsidized route (to Salt Lake City), but city and state officials have been pushing for a second route with additional subsidies. The Department of Transportation awarded that additional funding (PDF link) earlier this month, and now United seems ready to try it out once again.

In addition to new service to Butte, United unveiled flights to another subsidized airport, Morgantown Municipal Airport (MGW) in West Virginia, earlier this month. The airline will fly from its Washington, D.C.-area hub to MGW on a daily basis beginning Dec. 13.

All of these new flights join a flurry of network announcements from United, including its largest-ever international expansion and new domestic service to places like Crested Butte, Colorado, and Salt Lake City.

While United dropped nearly 40 U.S. cities during the pandemic, it seems that the tide is turning on those cuts.

The airline cited the pilot shortage and low demand as the primary reasons for pulling out of so many markets, but now that the industry has somewhat stabilized,