United Airlines to end flights to Topeka-Chicago O’Hare Sept 2

United Airlines has announced it will stop offering its flights services to Topeka Regional Airport from September 2014. The airline had started flights to Topeka, the capital city of the State of Kansas, only 9 months ago. The airline however said that the twice daily roundtrip flights between Topeka and Chicago O’Hare will be stopped from September 2 this year.

The Topeka Regional Airport authorities said that the airline’s move is quite worrisome and a big blow to the airport, which will be devoid of regular scheduled flights when United Airlines stops flying out of there.

Media reports quoted Rahsaan Johnson, a spokesman of United Airlines, as saying that the Topeka-Chicago O’Hare service wasn’t profitable at all. He said that during the time of launch the airline had high hopes and speculated that the outcome will be positive. However, the revenue earnings were far below expectations.

The reports said that the flights operated by United Airlines’ subsidiary United Express between Topeka Regional Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport were nearly 49 percent full on average. According to the reports, only 3 routes in the airline’s network at Chicago O’Hare had lower percentage of seats filled.

The reports stated that the Topeka-Chicago O’Hare route was able to be secured after the Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority provided $1.95 million in revenue guarantees. The funds provided by the authority however depleted by the end of May this year because of the low passenger numbers. This also became the prime reason for United Airlines deciding to end its flights out of Topeka.