United Should Close Dulles Hub

According to the DoT stats released on Thursday, IAD domestic fares are very high - second only to CVG.    The top five, in order, are CVG, IAD, MSN, IAH and EWR.    United has three of the top five locked up as fortress hubs, which helps explain UA's financial success over despite its recent troubles.  
 
http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts036_14
 
which validates that UA is not going to walk away from IAD as a hub because the local market is indeed very valuable.

having 3 high local yield markets is important but is offset by the amount of flow traffic that UA has to flow over those hubs using high cost aircraft.

As I have noted, the problem like so much of UA's system, is that they have too many costly small regional jets.

That can be fixed without harming the necessary flow and without walking away from the local market.