I'm a little more bullish on the futures of DEN, IAH, and (to a lesser extent) ORD than some of you.

Sure, I expect they will try to push some more flying back to the coasts, but the reality is those bases are not capable of handling the growth we're projecting. Naturally, that growth isn't a thing until it is, but for the purposes of this post I'm going to assume that United Next, to some substantial degree, plays out the way management intends it to.

There are bases that are capable of handling more growth and bases that aren't. We all know EWR isn't, and the company has already acknowledged that. EWR will always be a major player for us because we can't just ignore the largest O&D market in the country, but I would be very surprised if it were ever much larger than it is right now. It just isn't reliable enough; its problems create massive headaches for the rest of the operation with increasing frequency.

SFO, in my admittedly limited experience out there, also doesn't seem to be capable of considerably more flights than it has now. It's space-constrained in much the same way EWR is.

So where will all these new planes (and their crews) wind up? The places that have the space to absorb them, namely DEN and IAH. Especially as the regional flying diminishes, both airports can fairly easily take on additional mainline flying, even if it means repurposing some of the gates currently allocated to RJs. The new D pier with CBP access slated to open sometime in the next 6-12 months, which, while shared use, would give United increased access to international options. They're already in the design phase for renovating (reviving?) the north B gates for mainline aircraft.

Everything involved will take time, but I suspect when the dust settles IAH and DEN, along with IAD, will see significant growth in the next 5-7 years.