Originally Posted by FriendlyPilot

United didn't "cut capacity". Opposite.

United ended 2022 with 248 Billion available seat miles.

United ended 2024 with 311 Billion available seats miles.

This is 63 Billion more available seat miles and an increase of 25% in 2 years. It like United adding all of Spirit plus some of Frontier in only 2 years. (Spirit 50B Frontier 40B)

A lot are new planes, but a lot are upgauging of planes like parking RJs and replacing A-319s with A-321 NEOs.

What's incredible is this includes that United has been parking older planes, and some deliveries are replacements, but also much larger (200 seat 321NEO replacing 126 seat A-319)

At this rate United could have 470B+ of available seat miles by the end of 2029, which would be like adding all of Spirit, Frontier and Jetblue in the next 5 years, not counting the 2022 to 2024 growth as well.

This could accelerate as Boeing has said they will deliver 2 787s a month to United starting in January 2026 and 3 a month starting some time in 2027 now that the supply chain is restored.