United Airlines pauses plans for daily direct flights at Santa Maria Airport

United Airlines won’t land at the Santa Maria Public Airport anytime soon as the firm — and the travel industry — try to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Obviously, we’re very disappointed that all our work has resulted in another setback,” said Chris Hastert, airport general manager. “But we continue to meet with all of the different airlines, and I think there’s some other opportunities that are out there.”

Santa Maria airport, city, business and community leaders gathered in January 2020 to herald plans for the arrival of daily flights to and from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver.

Then the pandemic hit, lockdowns happened and air travel dropped dramatically.

Since then, the planned June 2020 start of service was moved multiple times, most recently aiming for October 2021. The planned Los Angeles route also was dropped.

“Throughout the pandemic, United has continued to evaluate and adapt its network to respond to the changing travel landscape. Due to the pandemic and changes in market conditions since our initial announcement, United has made the difficult decision to suspend its plan to operate nonstop service to Santa Maria, Calif. (SMX) from Denver and San Francisco,” United said in a written statement.

United continues to serve Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo airports.

“They definitely are still interested in the Santa Maria market, and definitely we will be keeping in touch with them to see how things go,” Hastert said.

United’s service in Santa Maria likely won’t arrive until after 2022, Hastert added.

The delay came as airlines struggle with staffing issues after months of lower-than-normal travel. While leisure travel has picked up, business travel continues to lag, Hastert said.

On Tuesday, United announced the purchase of 270 new Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

While it might seem counterintuitive, Hastert urged Santa Maria airport passengers to still fly on major airlines from San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara airports for now.

“For a hub carrier like American, United and Alaska to be successful here, they need to be successful at those other two airports,” Hastert said. “So I would say if you’re booking travel, still try to fly as local as possible and it’ll help us in the long run.”

The Santa Maria airport continues to be served by Allegiant Air flying to Las Vegas several days a week. In recent months, Allegiant has added flights between Santa Maria and Mesa, Arizona., plus Santa Maria and Portland, Oregon.

The Arizona flight launched in November, and the Oregon service started in April with low numbers because of the pandemic, but the activity has started to pick up, Hastert said.

“Those flights are really doing fairly well,” Hastert said, adding that Allegiant intends to keep them as year-round routes.

The Arizona and Portland flights occur twice a week, while the Las Vegas flights happen four days a week.