United retired its last three B737-500s by end of May ch-aviation PRO exclusive

United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) is set to relocate three regional routes from Newark to Washington Dulles as a part of its hub realignment strategy on the East Coast, ch-aviation schedule analysis has revealed.

The carrier's 6x weekly service from Newark to Lexington, KY, currently operated with ERJ-145 equipment by ExpressJet Airlines and CommutAir, will end on February 13. Subsequently, on February 14, United will launch a 21x weekly service from Washington to Lexington. The flights will be onboard CRJ-200s operated by ExpressJet Airlines, Air Wisconsin, and SkyWest Airlines (USA).

United will also end its 14x weekly service to Elmira/Corning, currently operated with ERJ-145s by CommutAir, on March 30, 2019. A day later, it will launch a new, also 14x weekly service from Washington Dulles, which will be operated by Air Wisconsin with CRJ-200s.

The carrier will further terminate its 20x weekly Newark-Manchester, NH service on March 30, replacing it with 21x weekly service from Washington Dulles. The route is currently operated by...

Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) is looking to route its Asian traffic increasingly through Seoul Incheon where it has a "fabulous" partner in the form of Korean Air (KE, Seoul Incheon) and away from Tokyo Narita, CEO Ed Bastian said at a Business Travel News conference.

Although at the time of Delta's merger with Northwest Airlines (NW, Minneapolis/St. Paul) in 2010 some 90% of the carrier's Asian traffic connected via Tokyo, this share has since gone down to just about a third. Bastian explained that Seoul offers connections to 80 destinations in Asia, while Tokyo allows for transfer to and from just a "handful" of airports in the region. Consequently, Delta's connecting traffic via Tokyo is "unsustainable" and "probably will be at zero at some point", Bastian added.

In Seoul, Skyteam airlines such as Korean Air, Delta, Air France (AF, Paris CDG), KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KL, Amsterdam Schiphol), China Airlines (CI, Taipei Taoyuan), and Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta...

CommutAir (C5, Cleveland Hopkins) has launched its first international services to Montréal Trudeau, ch-aviation schedule analysis has revealed. The regional carrier serves the Canadian city 4x daily out of Washington Dulles and 1x daily out of Newark under the United Express brand.

All flights are operated with ERJ-145XRs, the only type in CommutAir's current fleet.

CommutAir plans to launch services to Québec and Ottawa Int'l in the coming months.

The carrier is 40%-owned by United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) and plans to grow its current fleet of twenty-five ERJ-145s to sixty-one by the end of 2019. CommutAir operates exclusively for United, mostly out of Newark and Washington Dulles.

According to the ch-aviation capacity module, United also contracts ExpressJet Airlines to operate the Newark-Montreal route 2x daily. Sky Regional Airlines also operates the route 4x daily on behalf of Air Canada. The Canadian flag carrier is also United's sole competitor on the Washington Dulles-Montreal route - it subcontracts it to Jazz Air.

The US Department of Transportation formally cancelled five air carriers' certificates of authority due to dormancy with an order served on September 27, 2018.

The DOT cancelled the certificates of:

• Songbird Airways (5K, Lakeland), a private and public charter specialist once focused on operations to/from Atlantic City. The airline ceased all operations on February 7, 2017, and subsequently informed the DOT in December 2017 that it would not be restarting flights after a proposed acquisition by Baltia Air Lines (BTL, New York JFK) fell through.
• Business Jet Services, a charter specialist which reregistered as an air taxi operator in 2013, but subsequently decided to quit the aviation business and has never since signalled its intention to resume activities in this area.
• Priester Aviation (PWA, Chicago Executive), a business charter specialist which notified the DOT back in March 2017 that it had terminated aviation activities and would not seek to resume them.
• Air Micronesia (CO, Guam Int'l) and Continental Micronesia (CS, Guam Int'l), two airlines...