Some very passionate aviation geeks had quite the day yesterday, and it probably didn’t go quite as smoothly as they (or the airline) had planned.
In this post:
UA 7 Hub Run: race to visit all United hubs in one day
On Saturday, June 6, 2026, we saw the “UA 7 Hub Run,” as it’s called, which is the second year in a row that this has taken place.
The idea is that some aviation geeks set out on a journey to fly to all seven United Airlines hubs in one day, including Chicago (ORD), Denver (DEN), Houston (IAH), Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), and Washington (IAD).
This isn’t organized by United, though the airline does definitely embrace these passengers. I believe it’s arranged by that guy who made headlines last year for completing a four year mileage run to earn lifetime Global Services status with United — talk about commitment!
So a group set out to take the same six flights, flying to all seven hubs in one calendar day. This time around, roughly 70 people participated, and they had the following planned itinerary:
UA504 Newark to Washington departing 6:00AM arriving 7:22AM
UA1775 Washington to Chicago departing 8:15AM arriving 9:36AM
UA723 Chicago to Houston departing 10:30AM arriving 1:26PM
UA1246 Houston to Denver departing 3:00PM arriving 4:44PM
UA2240 Denver to Los Angeles departing 6:05PM arriving 7:40PM
UA2056 Los Angeles to San Francisco departing 9:34PM arriving 11:02PM
As you’d expect, those are all legal connections, though it definitely leaves little room for things to go wrong, especially early in the day. So, how did everything play out?
This didn’t go smoothly, with eight hours in collective delays
I have to commend the people who organized this for setting up a website with great tracking, showing exactly how the entire journey went (though the times don’t quite match the flight status published by United… though it’s close enough). Unfortunately this year’s trip didn’t go so smoothly:
- The first flight from Newark to Washington departed and arrived early, so things were off to a great start
- Unfortunately due to aircraft maintenance, things went downhill very quickly with the second flight, from Washington to Chicago, and that was delayed by over two hours
- United didn’t want these passengers to miss their connections, so United ended up holding the flight from Chicago to Houston for well over two hours, so that passengers could make their connection
- It’s hard to make up time when there’s not much of a buffer in the schedule, so roughly that amount of delay was maintained most of the way, though a little time was always made up
- In the end, the last flight, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, ended up being delayed by around 30 minutes
The collective delays across flights added up to around eight hours.
Man, talk about bad luck! I’m sure people will have conflicting takes on United holding flights for these passengers. United does have its ConnectionSaver program, where it will sometimes hold flights for late arriving passengers, based on a variety of operational considerations. Suffice it to say that a delay of hours to wait for connecting passengers probably doesn’t happen very often, though.
Some people would argue it’s kind of unfair to other passengers who actually had somewhere to go. Like, “sorry you’re going to misconnect on the way to that funeral, there are frequent flyers who are trying to fly to all hubs today” doesn’t have great optics.
At the same time, these avgeeks were paying for their tickets, and were largely high value customers, with a disproportionate number of passengers being Global Services and Premier 1K members. Furthermore, they were traveling as a group of 70, so they probably made up close to half of the passenger numbers on some of these flights, so that’s also a lot of passengers to leave behind.
So yeah, everyone can decide for themselves what they make of this. Personally, I commend the passion… talk about a memorable day!
Bottom line
A group of around 70 people attempted to take six flights to visit all seven United Airlines hubs yesterday, flying from Newark to Washington to Chicago to Houston to Denver to Los Angeles to San Francisco. This was the second year in a row where such an event was organized by a passionate Global Services member.
Fortunately for them, it worked out… but not without a little help from United. A significant maintenance delay on the second flight meant that travelers would’ve misconnected. However, subsequent flights were held — in some cases by hours — so everyone made it to San Francisco with a delay of only around 30 minutes, in the end. However, collectively, they racked up around eight hours in delays. Talk about a rough travel day, eh?
What do you make of this UA 7 Hub Run concept?
very impressive how UA handles delays and connections
Great. I haven't seen it covered but what about the the Lounge Crawl?
I’m hopping to join next year and I don’t think I would have become such a geek without OMAAT.
Great spin on a story. Missing a few facts including it was not an eight hour delay for these travelers. It ultimately was 20 minutes. What you're not looking at is all of the travelers that made it 6 hours early because United pulled in another plane after the breaks issue. The delays had nothing to do with the passengers on board but a mechanical failure.
You also seem to not have the facts...
Great spin on a story. Missing a few facts including it was not an eight hour delay for these travelers. It ultimately was 20 minutes. What you're not looking at is all of the travelers that made it 6 hours early because United pulled in another plane after the breaks issue. The delays had nothing to do with the passengers on board but a mechanical failure.
You also seem to not have the facts to share all the things United did to get all of the non-hub runner travelers to their destination, including rides in LAX over to the international terminal and having non-United flights held for people. I guess some people will do anything for a good head.
@ Sandy -- I'm sorry if you feel I wasn't fair, but there's not intended to be any spin to this story. As I said, I think this is a fun concept, and I commend the people who participated in it. I try to be balanced, though, and look at all sides of something.
I was suggesting that *other* passengers collectively suffered eight hours of delays, not the people who were just flying between hubs...
@ Sandy -- I'm sorry if you feel I wasn't fair, but there's not intended to be any spin to this story. As I said, I think this is a fun concept, and I commend the people who participated in it. I try to be balanced, though, and look at all sides of something.
I was suggesting that *other* passengers collectively suffered eight hours of delays, not the people who were just flying between hubs all day. You're right, those people were barely inconvenienced, and I think that also gets at the point I was making, about how there's another side to this.
Thanks for replying. You are still missing the point though. You are talking about the passengers that the HubRun inconvenienced and not all that got to their destination because of United getting involved. You also seem to want to blame an airplane breaks failure on a group of travelers.
Try a new headline that isn't clickbait - Almost 70 United Airlines Loyalist had an incredible journey! It
Sign me up for BOS-JFK-ATL-DTW-MSP-SLC-LAX-SEA, said nobody ever.
Don't forget RDU, AUS, and CVG... /s
yeah they ain't holding those planes for you lol
If the flights were held by some kind of automated system at United, then that's that.
But it was a stunt. If someone at United was deliberately holding flights to avoid a PR embarrassment, they owe the hundreds of needlessly delayed pax that weren't part of the joy ride some serious compensation.
any automation that automatically holds flights for even 30 minutes w/o human input is and should be classified as a failure.
UA has no such system; it was an intentional choice to tank their operation for the benefit of a PR stunt that simply proved why UA runs a second tier operation.
did I mention UA's bottom of the barrel baggage handling? :-) :-) :-)
Holding planes for an hour and a half plus for people "trying to fly to all hubs today” doesn’t have great optics"
Best words of the internet today
UA is always about the fluff more than the substance
Let me top UA off today about fluff with Tim Dunn.
@ Tim Dunn -- We're waiting to learn which EWR-LAX frequencies UA operates with 737-900ERs, please!! These are the important details!
This is awesome! Now, where are the Delta-freaks and American-fanatics to do the same with their hubs?
I feel on the second day they should have flown SFO-HNL-GUM-NRT
Don't neglect the ROR!