Really? UA now flies to more countries than it did before the merger. There is a joint venture in place with NH that is specifically designed for offloading routes like this. That didn't exist before - it was illegal. Look at the mess that DL now has in Asia because it isn't part of a JV like this. Anecdotal comments like "the plane was really full" is so far from the wealth of data that UA has on historical buying patterns by passenger, connecting city pairs, browsing flight options on the website, profitability of every flight, every day in the whole network that it's just laughable.