United Airlines has announced a wave of new summer routes from midwest US cities to east coast beach destinations, indicating it believes American passengers will be ready to vacation this year as the COVID-19 pandemic passes.

The flights will be operated by regional carrier GoJet Airlines using Bombardier CRJ-550 aircraft. The CRJ-550, the brainchild of GoJet president Rick Leach, seats 50 passengers in a 10-20-20 format; 30 of the seats are either domestic first class (10) or premium economy (20).

The 26 new routes are from Cleveland (CLE), Columbus (CMH) and Cincinatti/Northern Kentucky (CVG) in Ohio; Indianapolis (IND); Milwaukee (MKE); St. Louis (STL); and Pittsburgh (PIT). The beach destinations being connected include three airports in South Carolina, Pensacola (PNS) in Florida, Portland (PWM) in Maine and Savannah (SAV) in Georgia.

"In the past few weeks, we have seen the strongest flight bookings since the start of the pandemic," United VP of domestic network planning Ankit Gupta said.

“As we rebuild our schedule to meet that demand, adding in seasonal point-to-point flying is just one of the ways we are finding opportunities to add new and exciting service. And as we have done throughout the entire pandemic, we will continue being nimble and strategic with our network to add the right service to the destinations our customers want to visit."

https://infogram.com/1pw2vmgv199m2nsv7w7wg6qj6vu939nl2q0?live

Photo credit: GoJet Airlines via Twitter