It's often forgotten that 1991, Stephen Wolf then the CEO of United announced that Orlando would eventually be the airline's fifth US domestic hub. Eastern had gone out of business early in the year, and Delta faced little opposition in Orlando. Braniff II which had hubbed in Orlando went belly up in 1989, and US Air had yet to fully realize the potential of their merger with Piedmont in the Florida market.
United's attempts to build an Orlando hub were short lived. Two critical factors entered the equation. Firstly, Pan Am's demise in late 1991 and the ability to buy route authorities, terminal space and gates in Miami from the bankruptcy court at a cheap price. Secondly, US Air took note of United's plan and used their overall market position in Florida (inherited from Piedmont) to eventually drive United from the market by 1994. Since then Orlando has merely been a spoke in UA's system.
United's Orlando operation much like Northwest's Tampa mini hub of the 1980s and US Airways Fort Lauderdale hub/gateway of the 2000s was short lived and will forever be remembered as an experiment by a legacy carrier to corner the Florida or Latin America/Caribbean market by challenging the established strong carriers with an outside the box operation.
Here was what United's Orlando operation looked like in the Summer of 1992:
(All flights daily)
Boston 2x
Chicago-Midway 2x
Chicago-O'Hare 5x
Denver 2x
Fort Lauderdale 3x
Fort Myers 3x
Hartford 1x
Jacksonville 1x
Los Angeles 1x
Mexico City 1x
Miami 4x
Newark 3x
New York-LaGuardia 3x
San Francisco 1x
Sarasota 3x
Tampa 1x
Washington-Dulles 4x
Washington-National 3x
West Palm Beach 3x
Total Daily Departures: 46 daily flights
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