Originally Posted by
eng3
I agree, going to china from anywhere on the east side of the country is pretty bad these days. I don't mind connections but at least make the flight departure time a little later to allow for better connections.
It is never as simple as, hey, let's push back departure time, so people can have more of a cushion to connect from east coast/midwest. There are lot of other dependencies and downstream implications. For example, due to travel time, time zone change, and the desire the max aircraft utilization, the same aircraft doubles back (to SFO)...so, pushing the time any later would mean UA888 arrives in the evening time, UA889 cannot depart until later at night, leaving little to no onward connections upon UA889 arrival. Historically, UA888 was scheduled for even earlier departure (10am), and was never meant to be a connection for east coasters because there are other UA flights; the flight was always optimized for west coast connections.
That said, I have done the 10am connection at SFO several times ex-BOS due to cheap J fares.