United Airlines resumes Washington Dulles-Albuquerque route

United Airlines has planned to resume flights between Washington, DC, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, becoming the second airline to serve the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area from Albuquerque.

Returning to flights between Albuquerque and Washington-Dulles

As flagged by AeroRoutes and affirmed by data from the aviation analytics company Cirium’s Diio Mi airline planning tool, starting in late May, United Airlines will resume flights between Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) and Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD).

The daily flights will initially be operated by an Airbus A319ceo , switching to the Boeing 737-700, until December, the last month that the airline has planned to operate the flights. However, this could still change going forward.

United Airlines will be returning to serving flights between Albuquerque and Washington-Dulles since it exited the route in April 2014, when, after having served the itinerary since September 2006, it finally ended the services between the two cities.

Competing against Southwest Airlines

While United Airlines abandoned Albuquerque, Southwest Airlines has continued to serve the airport with up to double-daily flights between January 2001 and August 2020, when it also temporarily cut flights between the New Mexican airport and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).

The latter is located within the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area. In March 2021, Southwest Airlines slowly returned to the route, starting with once-per-week flights and ramping up to daily, sometimes even more than daily flights since then. For example, in October, the carrier scheduled 12 weekly flights on the route.

Cirium’s Diio Mi data showed that Southwest Airlines has flown the route with either the 737-700, 737-800, or 737 MAX 8 aircraft, which seat from 143 to 175 passengers.

Southwest Airlines’ stronghold

Still, Southwest Airlines will maintain its leading position in Albuquerque. Out of the 614 total weekly itineraries airlines have scheduled out of the airport in New Mexico in June, the low-cost carrier should operate 253 flights per week, or 41.2% of the total traffic out of Albuquerque.

The second-largest airline at the airport is American Airlines, which scheduled 116 weekly flights from the airport in June, followed by United Airlines, which has planned 97 weekly departures during the month.

In general, United Airlines should be the fastest-growing airline at the airport, adding 27 weekly itineraries and 39.8% more available seat kilometers (ASK), measuring capacity, compared to June 2024.

Its route network from Albuquerque should include only five destinations, namely the quintet of United Airlines’ hubs, including Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), Denver International Airport (DEN), Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), San Francisco International Airport (SFO), and Washington-Dulles.

United Airlines flights to the five destinations it serves out of Albuquerque should be operated by a wide variety of aircraft, including the A319, A320 , 737-700, 737-800, 737-900, 737 MAX 8, Embraer E145, E175, and Mitsubishi (née Bombardier) CRJ700 in June.

On average, the airline’s departures from the New Mexican airport should have 100.4 seats per departure, compared to, for example, Southwest Airlines’ average of 157.9 seats per flight from Albuquerque during the month.