United Airlines cancels routes permanently, offers refunds

When United Airlines reported earnings in April for the first quarter of 2025, the airline shared some good news. It had its best first-quarter financial performance of the past five years.

This means that despite the threat of tariffs and the resulting economic uncertainty and slowdown in traveler demand, United Airlines earned a record-high $13.2 billion in revenue.

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The future is also looking positive for the airline, with United saying it “expects resilient earnings in Q2 and full year 2025, despite [the] uncertain macroeconomic environment.”

However, while United is projecting solid profits, it’s also making some changes to help maximize the chances of another great quarter.

Specifically, the airline said it would remove four percentage points of scheduled domestic capacity beginning in the third quarter of 2025. It will also make “prudent adjustments to the utilization rate of its fleet.”

While some of those adjustments involve reducing flights on lower-demand days, the airline will also abandon certain routes altogether.

In fact, two of its routes will end permanently, and customers who are already booked will need to understand their options for getting to their final destination.

Customers booked on two United Airlines landline routes will need to figure out an alternate way of getting to their destination.

Image source: Robert Alexander/Getty Images

United Airlines cuts these two routes for good

According to United Airlines, the two routes that the company will no longer offer include:

Denver to Fort Collins, Colo. (DEN-FNL) landline service, which will no longer operate after July 31, 2025
Newark, N.J. to Allentown, Pa. (EWR-ABE) landline service, which will no longer operate after September 1, 2025

Customers booked on both of these routes will need to be reaccommodated. This may involve being re-routed to another airport that is within a 300-mile radius, or it may involve being offered an alternate connection.

In some cases, the airline will also offer customers a partial refund if they will no longer be able to count on United for this leg of their trip.

An internal memo on the coming change to these routes did not provide any reason why United has decided to make this change to its trip options later this summer and in early fall.

United Airlines takes a different approach than American Airlines

These two routes were landline routes, which means that United Airlines operated buses to get people to their specific destination.

The two bus routes were the last landline routes that United Airlines provided, so it appears that the carrier is getting out of the business of offering bus routes as a supplement to its air travel options for people moving between travel hubs, at least for now.

This announcement comes at the same time as another popular airline, American Airlines, has announced that it will be adding routes to its landline service, with new routes being implemented as part of American’s broader regional network strategy.

While American Airlines already offers multiple bus transport options, beginning on September 22, 2025, American will expand this service with three new round-trip routes.

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United Airlines has obviously moved in the opposite direction, but that decision could come at the expense of customer convenience and flexibility. With airlines retiring small aircraft and many feeder routes that were canceled during the pandemic never returning, it has become harder for some passengers to find options for short trips between major destinations.

Now, United Airlines is eliminating two more of those options, and customers who were expecting to travel on the canceled routes may be left scrambling, trying to find a good solution to get to their chosen destination.