Originally Posted by
Doppy
I'm sure there's a price that would induce demand to make the planes 100% full, but apparently United doesn't want to offer tickets at it.
Well, duh; they can make more money selling fewer seats at higher prices (econ 101). Furthermore, the Chinese airlines have provided zero downward pressure on fares like you would see if they were running 300+ flights every week.
But in the old days there used to be many times more flights than there are today, and yet current flights seem empty. So I have a hard time reconciling the idea that there is so much demand that United should 3x (or whatever) capacity, while the supposed high demand doesn't seem to fill planes.
UA's push for more capacity has definitely softened during the course of the past year. I think part of this is due to the fact that American and Delta (2 other key players on the US side of the coin, in addition to the DOT) haven't been so bullish (they are both constrained by widebody fleet limitations), but the main issue is that inviting more competition will mess up the current gravy chain. As long as the Chinese airlines only have 35 slot pairs split 10 ways, they won't be a serious threat.
ETA: Expanding on the AA/DL dynamic, if the DOT was to secure an additional ~21 slot pairs, UA would almost certainly file applications to use all of them (just like they did when 14 was increased to 35 last fall), whether or not this made sense from a short-term profitability standpoint, because adding capacity while AA and DL remain mostly stagnant would result a dominating presence in the market (maybe enough to poach a few key corporate accounts). But, obviously, this outcome would suck for AA and DL, so I don't expect any serious movement until they are ready to play ball, as well.