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United To Drop Flights To Santa Maria Airport

United Express announces plans to cut service to Santa Maria in October, citing low passenger numbers

A major airline has announced plans to drop its service to Santa Maria Airport.

United Airlines, which serves Santa Maria Airport through affiliated Skywest, says it will discontinue its service to the airport October 5th. The airline operates daily service from Santa Maria to San Francisco. An airline spokesman says low passenger numbers made the route unsustainable.

Last year, the carrier dropped its service from Santa Maria to Los Angeles, opting to add service to San Francisco. At the same time, it stopped using turboprop planes, and start using larger commuter jets for the Santa Maria and San Francisco service. United currently has two roundtrip flights a day between Santa Maria, and San Francisco.

Santa Maria airport has one remaining carrier, Allegiant, which operates round trip service to Las Vegas.

United provides round trip service to Los Angeles, and San Francisco from Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo airports.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.