Why is United Airlines so expensive out of Houston IAH?2 (Dallas: maintenance, airports)

[As Above So Below...]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

It really depends on the destination and whether SWA has a flight to the same city from Hobby. ORD is cheap on UA. Laredo is not.

Southwest actually has high fares to a lot of markets where they compete. WN isnt some sort of charity, they push their fares the limit where they can.

[Mr. Clutch]

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

Southwest actually has high fares to a lot of markets where they compete. WN isnt some sort of charity, they push their fares the limit where they can.

Amen to that. They are not cheap in many cases. And personally, I actually prefer UA over them primarily because I've had some really bad experiences with Southwest (not all of them necessarily the airline's fault). I like flying out of Hobby, but would rather trek to IAH rather than connect in most cases.

[LocalPlanner]

I'm not saying SWA is actually better than UA - I usually find that UA's schedules are considerably better, especially for nonstops. It's just that it seems when SWA runs a nonstop between Hobby and another destination, UA will have a little bit lower fare. This is only true for SWA nonstops though (see: Houston-Amarillo).

[Stevehanrahan41]

People actually feel loyalty to airlines? Seriously? Give me what’s cheapest lol

[As Above So Below...]

Originally Posted by Stevehanrahan41

People actually feel loyalty to airlines? Seriously? Give me what’s cheapest lol

You probably dont fly very much if thats your opinion.

[haudi]

When you fly at LEAST once a month, loyalty and perks are everything.

Originally Posted by Stevehanrahan41

People actually feel loyalty to airlines? Seriously? Give me what’s cheapest lol

[DabOnEm]

I think the crappy service by United and the great service by Continental has just about balanced out now to "good to okay service" overall by UA. When the merger first happened, you could really tell the difference between a CO crew and a UA crew. Heck some CO crews were proud to say they were a CO crew.

I generally fly UA for leisure (I'm on a buddy pass list so pricing is literally the same no matter where I fly domestically) and SWA for business. I have to say that SWA has lost quality over the years while UA has picked up a little.

[oceangaia]

Because UA dominates at IAH most people will end up doing most of their flying with them. As such, they will be on their frequent flier program and have miles accrued. So when they do have a choice, they might pay a bit more for United in order to earn the miles. For example, a choice between UA to Europe for $1400 on UA or $1200 on BA may be a no-brainer to the occasional flier who doesn't care about miles earned but a different choice for a frequent flier looking at almost 10k miles earned.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

Southwest actually has high fares to a lot of markets where they compete. WN isnt some sort of charity, they push their fares the limit where they can.

True, but the "Southwest effect" has been demonstrated over and over. One example I'm presonally familiar with is Houston to Cancun. Ten years ago the fares to fly into Cancun or Cozumel (about 30 miles away) were similar. SWA started flying into CUN around 2011-2012 when they bought AirTran and ever since fares to CUN have been half that to CZM, as low as $200 rt. Now it's true that United is often a few bucks cheaper than SWA on that route but there's no doubt in my mind that if SWA canceled that route, UA would jack fares back up.

Also consider SWA offers two free checked bags and no change fees. That may be a non-factor to some but changes the equation for others.

[gwarnecke]

I used to fly out of IAH regularly on business, and I do recall a few ridiculous examples of United charging whatever they could get away with on routes where they offered the only nonstop flight. For example, last minute round-trip flights to Wichita for nearly $1500 - about double what a flight to Tulsa or Oklahoma City cost (Southwest didn't fly into Wichita at the time, but did fly to Tulsa and OKC - I think now they fly to all three cities).

Nowadays I mostly fly for leisure. On the last few trips that I've made, United has been comparable to Southwest or maybe a bit cheaper, BUT flying out of Austin is much cheaper than flying out of either Houston airport. I'm seriously jealous of the fare deals that show up in Austin. If I'm buying 3 or 4 tickets and am not in a huge hurry, I'll actually drive to AUS (about two hours outside of rush hour) to save a few hundred bucks total.

I wish the low-cost long-haul carriers such as Norwegian and WOW would break into Houston - it's a much larger market than several of the US cities that they fly out of. But most of these low-cost carriers have run into hard times in the past year and are shutting down routes, rather than adding them, so I'm not counting on this happening.