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What city in the Middle East has the most UA/*A longhaul flights eastward?

What city in the Middle East has the most UA/*A longhaul flights eastward?

Old Jul 14, 2016, 3:14 am
  #1  
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What city in the Middle East has the most UA/*A longhaul flights eastward?

I know...weird question..but wondering what city has the most *A/UA flights (longhaul) that go eastward? I looked at TLV and Cairo, and neither have that many. Figured the experts here would know.
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Old Jul 14, 2016, 4:15 am
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The obvious answers are in major *A hubs, so it's got to be IST (ok technically in Europe, but only 10km away from Asia and an awful lot nearer than CAI. Apart from that, it's very piecemeal but it's going to be somewhere that all the Asian *A carriers fly to. UA won't have any flights. Of course, if we are including Africa, then it will be ADD.
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Old Jul 14, 2016, 4:53 am
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Originally Posted by lhrsfo
The obvious answers are in major *A hubs, so it's got to be IST (ok technically in Europe, but only 10km away from Asia and an awful lot nearer than CAI. Apart from that, it's very piecemeal but it's going to be somewhere that all the Asian *A carriers fly to. UA won't have any flights. Of course, if we are including Africa, then it will be ADD.
Unfortunately, IST doesn't work because it's in Europe, and ADD doesn't work because it's in Africa.

I guess my question is better asked, what *A hubs exist in the middle east?

(good point about no UA...that's not a problem)
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Old Jul 14, 2016, 5:42 am
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Originally Posted by imgonnafly
Unfortunately, IST doesn't work because it's in Europe, and ADD doesn't work because it's in Africa.

I guess my question is better asked, what *A hubs exist in the middle east?

(good point about no UA...that's not a problem)
No Middle East airlines = no Middle East star alliance hubs.
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Old Jul 14, 2016, 5:48 am
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Originally Posted by imgonnafly
Unfortunately, IST doesn't work because it's in Europe.
Perhaps it would be easier if you state exactly why you have these restrictions. CAI, according to your OP is ok, notwithstanding that it's not in Asia. But IST, which is less than 10 miles from Asia, is not ok. If we could understand what you want to achieve, then it would be easier to answer.
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Old Jul 14, 2016, 6:19 am
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SAW airport in Istanbul is in Asia, lots of flights to europe on Turkish and Pegasus Airlines.

I know Tblisi in georgia has a good amount of flights too. It seems to me a lot of these cities in the Middle East are only served now by Lufthansa and Turkish with UA retreating from the region. If you want to go to Asia there are lots of airlines serving BAH / Bahrain (Thai, Air India are a few). For Africa we have Ethiopian and there are a few 5th freedom flights, for Example Frankfurt - Jeddah - Addis Ababba. Good luck
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 6:28 am
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Originally Posted by lhrsfo
Perhaps it would be easier if you state exactly why you have these restrictions. CAI, according to your OP is ok, notwithstanding that it's not in Asia. But IST, which is less than 10 miles from Asia, is not ok. If we could understand what you want to achieve, then it would be easier to answer.
I'm not sure if what I'm trying to do is intentionally allowed or not allowed and just a United glitch, hence the vagueness. CAI is ok because it's in the middle east. TLV is ok because it's in the middle east. so i'm just looking for the airport that has the most flights eastward on *A located in the middle east although actually I do care about lots of flights to different parts of europe as well.

sorry for the vagueness. I can pm you more information and details of what I'm trying to do.
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 6:41 am
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In order to answer the question, someone has to define which areas/countries belong to the Middle East. Depending on who you ask, the list may vary slightly.

If we go with what Wikipedia defines as "traditionally included":
Territories and regions usually within the Middle East
Traditionally included within the Middle East are Iran (Persia), Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt. In modern-day-country terms they are these:

Bahrain
Cyprus
Egypt
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Jordan
Kuwait
Lebanon
Oman
Palestine
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
Yemen
The inclusion of Turkey is based on the CIA World Facebook, and modern-day Turkey occupies land that in a broad, historic meaning was part of the Levant (but is not considered part of the Levant in more modern usage).
Using that definition, all of Turkey is included, so the answer to the OP's question would be "IST".
If you exclude Turkey, the answer would probably be "CAI", although it's possible that there are more eastbound *A flights from DXB.

Last edited by UA1K_no_more; Jul 15, 2016 at 6:51 am
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 6:49 am
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Conversely, if you are going by UA's definition of Middle East, which is sounds like you might be, then Turkey is in Europe. CAI is in the Middle East.

Using UA's definition, and has been talked about already, there are no *A hubs there outside of CAI. But CAI only has a few *A l/h flights eastbound. The largest number of *A l/h flights from within UA's Middle East is probably DXB. You have a few on Air China to Beijing and Chongqing, Thai to Bangkok, and SQ to Singapore. And while not longhaul, plenty of flights to India by Air India.

You've certainly peaked my interest in this, though.
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 7:39 am
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Originally Posted by UA1K_no_more
The inclusion of Turkey is based on the CIA World Facebook, and modern-day Turkey occupies land that in a broad, historic meaning was part of the Levant (but is not considered part of the Levant in more modern usage).
Using that definition, all of Turkey is included, so the answer to the OP's question would be "IST".
If you exclude Turkey, the answer would probably be "CAI", although it's possible that there are more eastbound *A flights from DXB.
Technically, Turkey is in both Europe and Asia. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles separate Thrace from Anatolia, the one side being in Europe, the other Asia. This makes sense in geographical terms and, to some extent, in tribal terms. Istanbul is in Europe but Ankara is in Asia. (Strangely Cyprus is also considered Europe, as is Lampedusa, which is even closer to Asia.)

So, technically, UA is correct with its chart on IST. But, by the same measure, it's wrong on CAI as most of Egypt, including CAI is in Africa, with only the Sinai peninsula being in Asia. But geography is not really UA's strong suit.
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 7:55 am
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Assume OP is using some kind of award or cert restriction - or anything that restricts him or her from any other gateway. Maybe there's an award "loophole" he or she has found.
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 10:04 am
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Using a generous definition of the mideast above, and an approximate definition of east, and considering >6h block time to be longhaul, I came up with this list for *A carriers:

Code:
 origin | daily_flights | annual_destinations 
--------+---------------+---------------------
 IST    |          35.7 |                  21
 AUH    |          15.4 |                  10
 DXB    |          11.2 |                   7
 CAI    |           4.2 |                   3
 TLV    |           1.3 |                   2
 SHJ    |           1.1 |                   2
 DOH    |           0.9 |                   2
 MCT    |           0.7 |                   1
 KHI    |           0.6 |                   2
 BAH    |           0.5 |                   1
 DWC    |           0.4 |                   1
I'm a bit skeptical of AUH over DXB, not sure what's going on there.
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 12:10 pm
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Originally Posted by lhrsfo
.... But, by the same measure, it's wrong on CAI as most of Egypt, including CAI is in Africa, with only the Sinai peninsula being in Asia. But geography is not really UA's strong suit.
DL folks must have gone to the same schools,
AA also
, as did the LH folks

My guess is there is some historical reason for this
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 12:22 pm
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Originally Posted by mduell
Using a generous definition of the mideast above, and an approximate definition of east, and considering >6h block time to be longhaul, I came up with this list for *A carriers:

Code:
 origin | daily_flights | annual_destinations 
--------+---------------+---------------------
 IST    |          35.7 |                  21
 AUH    |          15.4 |                  10
 DXB    |          11.2 |                   7
 CAI    |           4.2 |                   3
 TLV    |           1.3 |                   2
 SHJ    |           1.1 |                   2
 DOH    |           0.9 |                   2
 MCT    |           0.7 |                   1
 KHI    |           0.6 |                   2
 BAH    |           0.5 |                   1
 DWC    |           0.4 |                   1
I'm a bit skeptical of AUH over DXB, not sure what's going on there.
Could you have been picking up NH/OZ/NZ codeshares with EY? Or maybe cargo flights?

I'm looking at the AUH website and the only *A airlines that fly there seem to be A3/AI/LH/MS/TK and AI is the only airline that flies east from there...
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Old Jul 15, 2016, 1:56 pm
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It was codeshares, some *A carrier is codesharing on EY.

Here's the same numbers without codeshares:

Code:
 origin | daily_flights | annual_destinations 
--------+---------------+---------------------
 IST    |          22.8 |                  21
 DXB    |           3.1 |                   4
 CAI    |           2.0 |                   3
 SHJ    |           1.1 |                   2
 KHI    |           0.6 |                   2
 DWC    |           0.4 |                   1
 DOH    |           0.1 |                   1
 BAH    |           0.1 |                   1
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