United Airlines announced in a Q3 earnings report that regional partner SkyWest Airlines will operate the CRJ-550 beginning in December. As first reported by Edward Russell, the regional behemoth will operate 11 of the type initially under the United Express banner.
From @united's Q3 earnings release: @SkyWestAirlines will begin flying 11 dual-class CRJ550s for United from December.
— Edward Russell (@ByERussell) October 15, 2024
Background on how the 50-seat CRJ550 has carved itself a niche in the US regional market: https://t.co/kF6LzdxFN8 $UAL pic.twitter.com/PnRaQKKo4o
The CRJ-550 burst onto the scene with United’s regional partner GoJet back in 2019 and was meant to help the carrier navigate the scope clause restrictions which were some of the most punitive in the industry. The CRJ-550 is essentially a reconfigured CRJ-700 equipped with only 50 seats. This allows the carrier to use larger, more premium aircraft while staying under the limit of the larger 70/76 seat regional aircraft.
For years, GoJet operated the CRJ-550 exclusively for United Express. However, earlier this year, SkyWest announced that they would begin operating the type on behalf of Delta Connection as the carrier phased out its CRJ-200 fleet. The addition of the 11 CRJ-550s for United brings SkyWest’s total to 30 (it operates 19 for Delta).
While we don’t have many details about how United will utilize the additional aircraft, I have a sneaking suspicion that it will involve the carrier’s Denver hub. United has expanded rapidly in Colorado, opening new lounges and launching new routes. There have also been reports that it is the carrier’s most profitable hub and they have a large regional jet operation serving the Mountain West.
With the aircraft scheduled to begin service in December, we should know shortly how exactly the carrier plans to utilize the planes. I’m sure eagle-eyed aviation route experts like IshrionA will have more information soon and we’ll be sure to update this post once we know more.
Update on SkyWest’s CRJ-550s for United
Well, it appears that I was way off base here. United has filed schedules for these new aircraft and all of them will be based out of the Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) base. The CRJ-550s will be added on the following routes:
- Appleton (ATW) – Chicago ORD
- Cedar Rapids (CID) – Chicago ORD
- Duluth (DLH) – Chicago ORD
- Fargo (FAR) – Chicago ORD
- Grand Rapids (GRR) – Chicago ORD
- Harrisburg (MDT) – Chicago ORD
- Madison (MSN) – Chicago ORD
- Milwaukee (MKE) – Chicago ORD
- Moline (MLI) – Chicago ORD
Special thanks to NedsKid for the information.
Summary
United’s regional partner, SkyWest Airlines, will operate 11 CRJ-550 aircraft under the United Express brand beginning in December. While we don’t yet know how the carrier will utilize these additional aircraft, it will no doubt represent a positive for passengers thanks to the abundance of premium seating and available storage.
Oh yes please more of these. Though I’ve actually never flown on a CRJ-550 successfully.
I’ve got 86 segments on UA this year and about 35 of them have been on 50-seaters (out of 48 UA Express segments).
Thoughts on my DEN prediction? I don’t see them taking over flying from GoJet but I feel like UA saw DL introduce the CRJ-550s at SLC and wanted their own in the Mountain West.
I would agree with you on DEN. There are some smaller UA markets that I could see having premium demand namely Wyoming/Montana especially seasonally…. thinking like Casper, West Yellowstone, etc. This also gives them another option for Aspen to make capacity adjustments. There are a few longer markets UA runs a 50 seater on EAS/capacity reason-wise where they are competing with Delta… UA is flying 2 hours plus on a CRJ while DL has a CRJ-550/700.
I would love to see them re-enter some of the smaller markets they left during the pandemic. With your prediction about them being based in DEN…I’m thinking they could restart service to places like COU (who just debuted a brand new terminal right after UA left). Whether or not COU sees the 550 or the 200…the just need some competition there as AA is the only carrier.
While I could see them re-entering some smaller markets, COU seems more likely to get service to ORD from UA compared to DEN as its half the distance.
You never know… UA has been splitting it up a lot. Joplin and Sioux City for example have CRJs to both ORD and DEN. Lincoln same thing. Also there are a number of UA cities in North Dakota who are solely DEN even though ORD would be 45-60 minutes closer.
True, but United would have to undercut AA significantly on price to convince passengers to backtrack to DEN (always possible pax are headed west) over shorter hops to DFW/ORD on AA.
We were all wrong. UA filed schedules for them…. all out of ORD and none on EAS:
Appleton (ATW) – Chicago ORD
Cedar Rapids (CID) – Chicago ORD
Duluth (DLH) – Chicago ORD
Fargo (FAR) – Chicago ORD
Grand Rapids (GRR) – Chicago ORD
Harrisburg (MDT) – Chicago ORD
Madison (MSN) – Chicago ORD
Milwaukee (MKE) – Chicago ORD
Moline (MLI) – Chicago ORD
Swing and a miss on my part. Thanks for the info, I’ve added it to the OP. Seems like a waste of capacity to throw it on MKE-ORD.
It’s replacing regular CRJs on MKE-ORD I presume. I didn’t look which specific flights but I would venture a guess that it is on those that connect most logically with Europe so they can avoid that “mixed cabin” search result on premium cabin tickets.
I could surmise based on this selection that they’re using it to better compete with primarily Delta’s options for premium traffic out of those cities.
The distance seems outrageously short to deploy that much premium capacity but I guess it doesn’t warrant a CR7/E175. Also, the logic around international/First Class booking makes sense given the size of MKE compared to other airports in the area.
Seems like maybe United will be moving to consolidate the GoJet operation to EWR and IAD. Go.jet was given so many frames and has not put half of them into service with additional frames sitting to be converted still.
Now there’s a thought. GoJet would likely need to close its ORD crew base and open something at IAD to make that feasible though.
I didn’t think of that, but it wouldn’t be unusual for a base to close based on the mainline partner’s plans. Think of C5 — in recent years EWR closed and the. DEN opened and closed.
G7 has bases in ORD, STL, EWR, and RIC. The plan was for nearly 70 frames, they have less than 40 active, maybe ORD remained a base in hopes of G7 being successful. With a difficult go at things, the fleet gets shuffled and flying gets redistributed. GoJet operates about 40 departures at ORD and those flights could be easily replaced by OO’s eleven frames albeit with a higher utilization rate.
Maybe we would see this:
C5 IAD/IAH
G7 EWR/IAD
OO IAH/LAX/ORD/SFO
YV IAD/IAH
YX EWR/IAD/ORD