Rochester Will Soon Have One Less Way to Fly Non-Stop to Chicago

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If you were planning on flying non-stop from Rochester to Chicago to catch a connecting flight, you'll soon have one less opportunity.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that after having lived in Rochester for nearly a decade now, I just flew out of Rochester International Airport (RST) earlier this spring on our trip to the Outer Banks. We flew on SkyWest, United Airline's connecting flight that took us non-stop from RST to O'Hare Airport in Chicago where we boarded another flight to Norfolk, Virginia.

It was SOO easy flying out of RST! No more spending nearly an hour and a half driving up Highway-52 to the Minneapolis airport. Parking for the entire week was waaay cheaper, and getting through the TSA checkpoint took about 10 minutes.

But, sadly, that connecting flight we took in May is going away at the end of August, as SkyWest/United Airlines announced Monday it will end its non-stop service from RST later this month.

According to this story from travel site Finntechzoom, the move comes because the flights were not attracting enough passengers to make them economically viable.

"The decision is based on looking at the forecast for demand for the flight. It just hasn’t been performing," SkyWest spokesperson Wes Horrocks said the story.

United had been offering non-stop Rochester-to-Chicago flights since 2017. (Again, I'm a little embarrassed to admit we didn't use that connecting flight earlier than this spring!) However, not all is lost. Horrocks went on to say that United/SkyWest's non-stop flights from Rochester to Denver, which were introduced last October, are still available (and are performing well right now.)

And, even though United is stopping its non-stop flights from the Med City, you CAN still fly non-stop from RST to Chicago, but you'll need to fly American Airlines instead.

RST is a great place, staffed by some amazing employees (check out this story about how one RST staffer helped a traveler recently stranded in Rochester), but it's not the only place in the Med City to offer great service. Keep scrolling to check out some other local businesses with incredible customer service!

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