United Airlines will offer two nonstop flights daily between Asheville Regional Airport and Chicago starting Dec. 17, the airport said Monday.
In addition to easing travel to one of the most popular destinations for Asheville air passengers, the move should improve access to a number of destinations in the West, Midwest and overseas that United serves from its hub at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, one of the world’s busiest.
“Chicago’s certainly a big destination for us, and it opens a lot of doors to the whole western half of the United States,” said Jill Goldie, who books travel for workers at Volvo Construction Equipment’s North American headquarters in Skyland. “This is a new carrier and a new route. That’s great.”
Chicago top-ranked
Over the past couple of years, Chicago has typically ranked second or third among destinations for passengers flying out of Asheville Regional, even though there are no nonstop flights between the two cities, said Patti Michel, Asheville Regional’s director of marketing and public affairs.
United offers about 580 departures a day from Chicago, Michel said.
The flights will increase the number of destinations reachable by a nonstop flight from Asheville Regional to eight and the number of carriers serving the airport to six, although Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines are in the process of merging operations.
Michel said Asheville has “been at the top of the United list for a while” and that airport officials have been talking to both United and American Airlines about new service for some time.
An American announcement last week that it would add several more nonstop destinations from Chicago did not include Asheville service.
Delta and Northwest have reduced service from Asheville to Detroit and eliminated it to Cincinnati and Minneapolis/St. Paul over the past couple of years.
The Cincinnati and Twin Cities reductions “certainly factored into” United’s decision, Michel said.
Asheville Regional has had fairly strong passenger traffic numbers in recent months despite the recession.
Source: Asheville Citizen Times
