Originally Posted by
goodeats21
I didn't mean to imply they will stay on their original flight path. The question I was addressing was about fuel and crew time issues. Once they take off from Canada after diverting, they can fly anywhere that the fuel and crew limits allow them to.
For operational recovery, that could be SFO / HNL / LAX / Wherever they have the "legs" to get to. The advantage is it allows the passengers to get closer to their destination, and gives United Ops time to arrange for the follow-on flight to get them all the way to HKG. Suppose it could be FRA / LHR, though I don't think I have ever heard of those being used for Ops recovery....
Bottom line - every situation is different, with resources (planes and crews) at different locations across the globe based on that particular day / time.
From YYR, The closest hub to restock/recrew the flight is...EWR.
YYR-EWR-HKG is 1000 miles shorter than YYR-SFO-HKG. Going to any other UA hub, in this particular case, would, at best, be going sideways and not making “progress” toward the destination vs. the option they chose of just returning to EWR (assuming heading direct to HKG from YYR was not an option).