United Airlines announced that it is removing its hub and downsizing its presence out of Cleveland. Is this good or bad?
For the people, that depend on United Airlines, such as their employees it could be bad, however the upside is that it gives other airlines the opportunity to make Cleveland their market.
Now who wants to come to Cleveland to vacation, you may ask? Well, not sure if Cleveland is the hot spot for vacations, but we do have some pretty sweet spots for a weekend jaunt. And, we do still have an economy with plenty of businesses here that rely on airline transportation. In some ways Cleveland has died, some say it is dying but there is potential here and with the right support, perhaps Cleveland can rise once again. We may never be a Chicago or New York but we can stand as our own entity.
Honestly, I am not sad that United is leaving. I think their merger with Continental was a mistake and I wish Continental would have remained an independent carrier, alas it is too late for regrets and that change cannot be made. When I worked at the mortuary, United Airlines was almost always the priciest airline carrier for cargo and I was never impressed by their customer service, although I have not worked at the mortuary for some time, I am sure their structure has not changed much.
I would love to see Jetblue come to Cleveland and make their presence known. They are a low cost carrier, they already have flights out of Detroit & Pittsburgh (our neighbors), and many people from Ohio travel continually to Florida, as well as other places, so it would make good business sense for them to come here. After 9/11, many airlines decreased their presence in smaller cities, as United is doing in Cleveland now, and it made getting in and out of those cities more difficult but not impossible. Over the past few years, I have seen Jetblue and Southwest Airlines (Southwest does fly out of Cleveland) expand continually. Hopefully, the change United is implementing will make other airlines realize that their presence is needed and wanted here. Although, I do not travel often, I do want the most cost effective options and more options are better than just a few airlines. Overall, I do not think United Airlines decision is necessarily negative for Cleveland, as there are other options besides them and hopefully those options will expand in the future.
