Originally Posted by
UA_Flyer
According to
https://onemileatatime.com/
United plans to add the following flights to China and HK starting late October, 2025. These are not placeholder flights in the schedule as we had seen in the past.
- Daily Chicago (ORD) to Beijing (PEK) flights, operated by Boeing 777-200ERs
- Daily Chicago (ORD) to Shanghai (PVG) flights, operated by Boeing 787-8s
- Daily Newark (EWR) to Beijing (PEK) flights, operated by Boeing 777-200ERs
- Daily Newark (EWR) to Hong Kong (HKG) flights, operated by Boeing 777-300ERs
- Daily Newark (EWR) to Shanghai (PVG) flights, operated by Boeing 777-200ERs
- 3x weekly San Francisco (SFO) to Chengdu (CTU) flights, operated by Boeing 787-9s — note that CTU is listed as the airport code, but TFU is now the airport used for long haul flights
I have not following or visiting China for awhile, so cannot really assess there is enough demand. The best I can assume is United is optimistic a deal between Ukraine and Russian will be reached and Russian air space will be open again. No additional geopolitical tension between China and US, and additional slots will be granted by both sides. Regardless, there is a lot of seats to fill. I wonder whether this will reduce the number of China/HK flights out of LAX/SFO to make room/slots for these new services. I also note, IAD-PEK and ORD-HKG are not included on this list.
I know several Flyeralkers would not want to fly transcon from the East Coast to connect to/from China flights.
I would take this all as a grain of salt. Lucky is doing massive clickbait here. These routes are being sold only full fare. That should tell you everything that these aren't real and will eventually be removed as they are simply placeholder flights, which is what UA has been doing for years now. ORD-HKG ended prior to the pandemic as well. The HKG protests ultimately killed that flight off.