United waives change fees, cuts schedules
United Airlines is waiving change fees for all flights that have been booked with the airline now through the end of the month.
It’s a policy change that was announced this week against a backdrop of the continuing spread of the new coronavirus around the world. It’s a crisis that is leading United to make major cuts to its international and domestic flight schedules and look to tighten its belt to offset the lost revenue.
United’s website lists all flights booked between March 3-31 as eligible for free changeovers to another flight of equal or lesser value. The new flight must take place with 12 months of the customer’s original flight. Flyers can change to higherpriced tickets for free but will have to pay the fare difference, according to the airline’s guidelines.
The fee waivers cover all tickets to all destinations with no blackout dates for rebooking, United says. Fares are only refundable within 24 hours of a flight being booked.
United has already suspended all of its flights between the U.S. and Beijing, Chengdu, Hong Kong and Shanghai, China, amid the spread of the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus.
The illness originated in Wuhan City, China. Major outbreaks have been recorded in Iran, Italy, South Korea and Japan. The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued travel warnings for those countries and suspended access to the U.S. from foreign nationals traveling from China and Iran.
More than 100 cases of the infection have been recorded in the United States. Eleven people — 10 in Washington state and one in California — have died.
The CDC has not issued any domestic travel warnings.
The United website notes the airline is also suspending some service to Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, Osaka, Japan, Singapore and Seoul, South Korea.
The airline offers a direct flight between Denver International Airport and Tokyo. As of Wednesday morning, United was booking that flight as usual, spokeswoman Erin Benson said in an email.
Southwest Airlines, which also has a hub operation at DIA, has never charged change fees on its flights. It does not offer any intercontinental service out of Denver.
On Wednesday, United CEO Oscar Munoz and Scott Kirby, who will take over for Munoz in May, sent a letter to employees announcing that the airline is cutting its international schedule by 20% next month. Decreased traveler demand also means its domestic flights will be cut 10% in April. Similar schedule cuts are expected in May, the letter says.
To offset the losses, the airline is freezing most hiring through June 30 at least. It is launching a voluntary unpaid leave program for workers and putting off merit raises for nonunion employees until July 1, Munoz and Kirby wrote.
“We sincerely hope that these latest measures are enough, but the dynamic nature of this outbreak requires us to be nimble and flexible moving forward in how we respond,” they wrote.
Several airline CEOs met with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday. The administration is seeking the airlines’ help in tracing travelers who might have come in contact with people ill with COVID-19.
Just before United’s letter went public Wednesday, German airline Lufthansa, which has a direct flight to Frankfurt out of Denver, announced it was grounding 150 planes because of weak passenger demand.
Southwest Airlines has said it has no immediate plans to reduce flights, while other airlines have yet not made their plans around the crisis public, but it’s clear the COVID19 outbreak is doing economic damage to the industry.
United’s stock has fallen by nearly a third in 2020.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.