Originally Posted by
sfo3388
I was checking the same thing during the week of 1/5 from TPE to SFO. Even checking connecting in HKG with UA878, which was impossible. Eventually I went with TSA-HND-LAX-SFO. These days TYO-LAX seems to have better PZ availability.
I guess there is a strong travel demand from Taiwan during Las Vegas CES show. This year it ended on 1/8.
Looks like every Taiwanese has relatives or children living in USA. Early January is the time they go back to work/study and they don't fly economy.
Lol, that's dedication to route like that, and I wouldn't have survived with that many connections with a family. Maybe solo I'd pull something off like that so hats off to you!
Regarding CES, I feel they would've left earlier for for CES. I think it's more that the Taiwanese community in the US is pretty big and has strong ties back home. Many are successful in tech and a lot go back during the Christmas/New Year's holidays. Some people leave a little early, some stay a little later, and as a result the flights from mid Dec thru mid Jan are packed.
As a Taiwanese American who grew up making this trek every year, I recall seeing friends from school on these flights all the time. In college, especially at semester schools, you'd see people staying into the 2nd week of January as school didn't start up til mid to late January. Those flights back to SFO and LAX were always packed and I don't mean United either; BR/CI were always fully packed. My hypothesis is a lot of people bought upgrades and while some GSers did 1-up my PP, I'm surprised my Seats.Aero never alerted me so it's more likely people weren't jumping queues and more likely bought upgrades. As I said above, tech households, successful families in SF/LA areas can likely spend that kinda money no problem.