United Airlines’ latest announcement shows it is angling itself to take advantage of a rival airline’s financial struggles.
On Thursday morning, United announced it is expanding its winter schedule, adding new flights to 15 cities, including Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Las Vegas and Miami, as well as extra flights between three main hubs: Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles.
The new service begins January 6.
Today’s news comes as Spirit Airlines, one of United’s competitors, continues to deal with financial troubles, including a recent bankruptcy destination. The budget airline announced Wednesday it was cutting flights to 12 cities starting in October.
“If Spirit suddenly goes out of business it will be incredibly disruptive, so we’re adding these flights to give their customers other options if they want or need them,” said Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of Global Network Planning and Alliances, in a press release Thursday.
Winter travel a priority for United
United is the latest airline to bolster its travel schedule in an effort to take advantage of Spirit’s decline. Frontier Airlines announced it was adding 20 new routes last week.
Starting January 6, 2026, United will roll out two brand new routes from Newark/New York, with the destinations being Columbia, South Carolina and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The airline is also debuting three new weekly flights from Houston to Guatemala City, Guatemala and San Salvador, El Salvador. Additionally, there will be a new weekly route between Houston and San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
Lastly, United will run one additional daily flight to several American destinations based out of four main hubs (Houston, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles).
The new flights are as follows:
- Houston and Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Miami and Orlando
- Chicago and Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Orlando
- New York/Newark and Fort Lauderdale and Las Vegas
- Los Angeles and Las Vegas
Spirit’s struggles continue
Last month, for the second time in a year, Spirit filed for bankruptcy, heightening concerns about the airline’s long-term viability.
“Since emerging from our previous restructuring, which was targeted exclusively on reducing Spirit’s funded debt and raising equity capital, it has become clear that there is much more work to be done and many more tools are available to best position Spirit for the future,” Spirit CEO Dave Davis said. “After thoroughly evaluating our options and considering recent events and the market pressures facing our industry, our Board of Directors decided that a court-supervised process is the best path forward to make the changes needed to ensure our long-term success.”
On Wednesday, Spirit shared that it was cutting flights to 12 cities in October. Among those destinations were Albuquerque, Birmingham, Boise, Chattanooga, Columbia, South Carolina, Macon, Georgia, Portland and Salt Lake City.
Also ended were flights to Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento and San Jose in California.
