It’s not too late to take a summer vacation, but is it too expensive to take one? Despite rising fuel costs exacerbated by geopolitical tensions abroad, 66% of Americans plan on taking a vacation this summer. The plans, however, may have shifted from international to domestic, as more trips within the United States are on the rise. United Airlines is paying attention to this travel trend and responding to it with a new nonstop flight from Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) to Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD). The flight launched on Memorial Day weekend and plans to run every Saturday until late August, providing an alternative leisure-based travel option for travelers based in the Midwest.
Monterey is the entry point to Big Sur and California’s 17-mile drive, which includes globally renowned Pebble Beach Resort, Stillwater Cove, Spanish Bay, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and more attractions along the coastline. Prior to this flight, travelers had to change flights to travel between Monterey and California. This eliminated a certain percentage of travelers because of the difficulty of travel, according to Mark Weithofer, Managing Director of Domestic Network Planning at United Airlines.
“ When we started flying Chicago to Monterey a few weeks ago, we saw the volumes of passengers going between Chicago and Monterey triple by having the nonstop flight,” Weithofer told EBONY. “People value the convenience of being able to get to these unique destinations, even if it’s just a Saturday… We’re able to bring in not just people from Chicago, but throughout the Midwest and Eastern United States that maybe for them it was especially hard to get to Monterey because they would have to make two connecting flights to get there.”
This is not the first time that United Airlines has started out with a seasonal flight that became nonstop. The airline flies from Chicago to Sun Valley, Idaho, a highly popular alpine ski resort town. The decision to fly on Saturday is due to the high volume of leisure customers, the availability of flights and crew, and lower demand for business destinations. Weithofer said travelers use the Monterey flight as the entry point for a week-long stay in the region before connecting to a larger city, such as Denver, San Francisco, or Los Angeles. Or a first stop on an infamous California road trip.
United Airlines has been expanding its destinations in the Golden State. Carlsbad is one of them, said Kevin T. Willoughby, Corporate Sales Manager at United Airlines. “ What’s nice about the Monterey to Chicago flight is on a Saturday. You can fly Monterey-Chicago, and then that flight will connect the same night to our late London flight, late Milan flight, and the late Frankfurt flight that we partner with Lufthansa. We have three one-stop connections to Europe. We’re serving the domestic traveler, and we’re also serving that, hey, let’s still go international traveler with this flight,” Willoughby shared.
The data does not lie. Domestic flight routes have increased by 35 percent, according to Skiplagged. Domestic hotel bookings are up by 40 percent, according to Global Travel Collection.
When asked if this was an attempt to capitalize on the latest shift towards domestic-based travel, Willoughby said the following: “ I don’t know if this is a recent trend, but we’re the largest airline in the US by available seat miles. We have the biggest fleet of airplanes of any US airline. In order to do that, you have to serve a lot of places and connect a lot of communities, and we can efficiently do that over our really big hubs like Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, and Los Angeles. I would say serving small communities isn’t like a recent push. We have a history of doing and, when market conditions are right, a new route like Monterey-Chicago is something that we’re gonna definitely pursue.”
Although July is the peak of summer travel season, the best window to book domestic travel is from August 17 to September 7, compared with August 10 to September 9, according to KAYAK. After the nonstop service from Monterey to Chicago ends in late August, the airline will review data and trends from the summer service, which will determine if the service will extend into the fall, and to determine flight availability for the summer 2027 season, which is just in time for Pebble Beach to host the U.S. Open in 2027.