United Airlines is getting into the New York to Washington shuttle business by beefing up its service from Newark Liberty to Washington Reagan National in a move that adds not only more seats, but many more first-class seats.
The shuttle has a plus factor built in for travelers starting closer to Newark, but will still be competing with Amtrak’s Acela and with air shuttles from New York/LaGuardia to DC by Delta and American. Because of limits at DCA, United will give up Cleveland to DCA service to free up the slot pairs needed to go from nine flights a day to 14.
Most of the flights will be on United’s new CRJ-550s, which have 10 first-class seats and 40 economy; the previous RJ145s had 50 seats all in one class. The New York to Washington route has many business travelers who would buy the more-profitable premium seats, United hopes. One unique feature of the plane is a set of luggage closets (above) that are touted to eliminate the need to gate-check many bags.
In other United news, the airline is pulling those bag-size frames from its gate areas, allowing on-site staff to let bags through that might not fit the frame but would fit the overhead bins, which vary in size among different planes in the fleet. The sizers will still be there outside the security areas, and bags can still be flagged for checking before security.