Originally Posted by
AADC10
It is irrelevant now. A round of China route authorities passed in March and nobody applied. Any U.S. carrier could have obtained just about any route to China they wanted but there were no takers. China was not nearly the revenue generator it was hoped to be. UA also downgauged ORD-PEK & ORD-PVG to a 772. The fact is that a vast majority of the demand to China is on the West Coast, primarily California. The rest of the country has only limited demand for flights to China.
That's all well and good, but I distinctly recall UA's application for IAD-PEK, during which it extolled the virtues of its larger airplane (at length) v. CO's 777s. Ironically, CO's 777s carry more people than the 777s UA is currently using.
I'm guessing if UA's proposal said something along the lines of the following, it wouldn't have fared as well:
"We will fly from IAD to PEK 7 months a year on a 248 seat airplane."
But, you're right it's a moot point now because IIRC, all of the 2008 applications were subsequently approved... I think.