United Airlines cuts will close Cleveland Hopkins International Airport as a hub
United Airline ticketing agents serve patrons before their flights February 1, 2014 at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. United made available a written announcement of it's plans to cut almost 70 percent of flights with their smaller aircrafts.
(John Kuntz, The Plain Dealer)
CLEVELAND, Ohio – United Airlines confirmed Saturday that departures from Cleveland will be cut by about 60 percent due to unprofitable operations in the city.
Northeast Ohio Media Group spoke with several travelers to get their feelings on what the cutbacks will mean. Here’s what they had to say:
Omar Garcia of Cleveland uses United to fly to Puerto Rico. It’s what he’s flown since he came to America five years ago from Bayamon, Puerto Rico. It’s the same airline his mother, brothers, sisters and their families used to move to America.
He was at the airport Saturday to pick up another sister who was flying direct from the island.
“I fly United because it’s the cheapest flight I can find,” he said.
Garcia said with such a long flight to begin with, he would rather his family be flying straight to where he lives instead of another airport nearby like Akron, Pittsburgh or Detroit.
“It’s the best airline because it’s cheaper,” Garcia said. “I find this flight cheap (for my sister). It’s a nice price.
“I can fly another company but I think United gave me a good deal. I think it’s bad news for me and a lot of people.”
· Eric Holman of Rocky River flies “the cheapest fare.” He was at the airport Saturday to pick someone up. Holman knows all to well, though, about an airline pulling out of airport. He’s originally from Pittsburgh and closely followed the news in January about US Airways ending a six-year operation center in Pittsburgh, but its effects were noticeable long before that announcement.
“When they built the airport (in Pittsburgh), they built it to be a point of interest,” he said. “When US Airways started leaving, the airport is just dead.”
As for Cleveland, Holman said between the loss of jobs and limited flights, “it could have a big impact to this area.”
· Cecelia and Andreas Sörqvist of Wooster and Sweden, respectively, are trying to make a marriage work cross-continent. They were at the airport Saturday after Andreas’ departure flight to back to Sweden for work was delayed. All that after his arrival flight a month earlier was cancelled twice.
“Maybe their flight cancellations is part of the decline in people wanting to use them,” Cecelia said as she looked at her husband.
After all the problems the Sörqvist’s had with United the last month, they said the news and the impact it will have on the Cleveland community was sad, but they probably wouldn’t be using the airline anymore anyway.
David Fishbach of University Heights was on a United flight when he heard the news. He received an alert on his phone from cleveland.com and an email from a coworker almost simultaneously.
A consultant for a software company, Fishbach was a frequent flier of Continental and when the company merged with United, he continued as their customer. He roughly makes about 20 trips a year from Cleveland. He also makes trips out of Akron.
“Whenever I look at taking trips out of Pittsburgh or Detroit, though, it doesn’t seem worth it,” he said.
Fishbach has watched direct flight after direct flight be slashed from existence.
London? Gone. Paris? Gone. Frankfurt? Gone. San Antonio, Texas? Gone. Austin, Texas? Gone.
In fact, Cleveland was featured in an insert in United’s in-flight magazine, Hemisphere. Fishbach actually had a copy of the magazine in his bookbag. The magazine promoted everything from the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, the cities influencers, ads from Cleveland Clinic, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Sherwin-Williams and the University of Akron to articles about colleges like Kent State.
“It’s going to make me take more connections,” Fishbach said about the cutbacks. “It will probably make me less loyal to United.”