United Airlines Adds Flights From Mitchell

Yet another airline is adding service out of Mitchell Milwaukee International Airport.

United Airlines announced Monday morning that it is adding a new daily flight non-stop to Washington Dulles International Airport serving Washington D.C. and eastern Virginia.

In February 2020, United had the fourth largest footprint at the airport, accounting for nearly 9% of all passengers traveling through the airport. It has since dropped to fifth after being surpassed by Frontier Airlines, which prior to the pandemic was in fifth behind United at Mitchell.

With the addition of the new flight to D.C., United may start to climb again in the rankings. The latest traffic report shows United flew approximately 5,600 fewer passengers to and from Mitchell than Frontier Airlines.

Airport Director Brian Dranzik said, “It’s been many years since Dulles was served nonstop from MKE, and it’s great that United is continuing to expand from our hometown airport.”

United is only the latest in a flurry of carriers, mostly budget and low-cost airlines, to expand their flights out of Mitchell in recent months.

Southwest recently announced new, non-stop flights to Miami, and expanded service to other Florida hubs. Sun Country Airlines announced new flights to five destinations in April. The week before that JetBlue Airways announced new flights to Boston and New York City. And Spirit Airlines announced new flights to Las Vegas, Orlando and Los Angeles.

These new flights are coming to Milwaukee as the airport and the industry at large continue to recover from the initial shock of the COVID-19 pandemic when across the world people stopped flying or cancelled trips. In Milwaukee, Mitchell saw an approximately 90% drop in air traffic.

Ankit Gupta, vice president of domestic planning and scheduling at United said, “As we rebuild our schedule to meet customer demand this summer, we are adding service on routes we haven’t operated before like between Washington D.C. and Milwaukee.”

These new flights to D.C. will run daily and will leave Milwaukee at 6:55 a.m. arriving at 9:50 a.m. eastern time, with return flights leaving D.C. at 5:30 p.m. and arriving at 6:40 p.m. central time.

“These new flights to Washington Dulles give Milwaukee travelers better access to Washington, DC and eastern Virginia as well as dozens of new domestic and international flight connections from United’s Dulles hub,” Dranzik said.