99% sure it was LAX-AKL-MEL. I think also at one point UA did fly LAX-MEL pre-9/11 on a 744 that was severely weight restricted, i.e. with seats blocked off.

KIX is notorious for having low yields, despite serving a major metropolitan area with numerous corporate headquarters. UA tried ORD-KIX at one point but it didn't stick. Delta pulled out of KIX after inheriting a KIX-NRT tag flight from NW. AA tried DFW-KIX in the late 90s/early 2000s and couldn't make it work. Air Canada only offers seasonal service. The only other flight to North America, besides Hawaii, is JAL's service to LAX on a 787.

UA and AA both started NGO flights to coincide with the 2005 expo and the opening of Chubu Airport, but neither of those lasted very long; AA's only lasted for a few months, UA's became a victim of the financial crisis.

According to a source on another forum, UA's total LF on SFO-KIX between October 2023 and October 2024 was 65%. That is the second lowest LF for any US-Japan flight with DL's MSP-HND being lower. (If DL could move that flight it would have done so already as MSP does not have a local demand for TYO flying and NW's NRT hub shielded that fact. DL does a lot better on MSP-ICN with KE offering connections.) JAL operates LAX-KIX and it's LF was 70%, which fourth lowest for US-Japan flights. (UA's IAD-HND for that period was a paltry 67%.) JAL offers their most dense 789 configuration on LAX-KIX, with only 28 seats upfront and 21 in the middle, incidentally same as UA's 788s, as JAL struggles to sell upfront. JAL is making this flight daily this summer, likely because of the demand to KIX as more Americans are going to Japan now given the weak Yen and KIX serves as Kyoto's airport. UA is operating SFO-KIX less than daily this winter, switching up equipment around from a 788 to a 789 to a 772. Main difference between the three is how many seats upfront are being sold. UA is operating SFO-KIX with the 772 daily starting next month as that will begin the heavy season to KIX traffic.

US-Japan traffic, with US having more HND slots than any other country as a reward for using airspace from Yokota Air Base, is more TYO centric than it has ever been. DL's DTW-NGO, which was once NW operating a 744 on DTW-NGO-MNL in order to fill both cabins, was a pandemic casualty and is never coming back. NW had DTW-KIX-TPE but, with the DL merger, DL tried to move it to SEA-KIX but that flopped not just once but twice now. Hard to see DL returning to KIX. AA never had a chance with ORD-NGO as NW had a lock on that traffic. UA's SFO-NGO lasted longer, partly as UA had a SFO-NGO-TPE tag but once the Financial crisis hit, that went away and likely is not coming back. UA still flies to NGO via Air Mike but UA is scaling back where it is less than daily on GUM-NGO and I would wager that UA closes down NGO in the near future given the massive drop off in NGO-GUM traffic because of the weak Yen. UA's GUM problems are not too dissimilar than what DL had with HNL-Japan last decade. DL is hanging on for dear life on HNL-HND, with a 73% LF on a 216 seat 76K. A pretty stunning fall from where DL had in 2011/2012 in regards to that market. Yes, NH operating A388s does have something to do with that as UA's HNL-NRT was a pandemic casualty and HAL is existing HNL-NRT in a few months. Imagine that for the first time since NRT opened, there will not be a single HNL-NRT flight will be operated by an American carrier. And NW/UA were operating 747s on that route back in the day.

The inability of non-TYO US-Japan traffic to work outside of the two busiest airports for US-Japan traffic in the CONUS is pretty much an indictment on how the Japanese economy has fared over the past three decades compared to the US economy and a story of how Japan is evolving with an ageing population and well below replacement rate TFR. Once upon a time, Japan-US POS was much stronger on the Japanese side. In 1989, I think JAL was operating all business class 747 flights on JFK-NRT, which was how crazy wealthy Japan had gotten in the previous 40 years. Upon opening the McNamara Terminal at DTW, NW specifically installed Japanese signage throughout the terminal as NW was offering, at one point, over 1,600 ASMs a day on DTW-Japan. Now, the US POS is much stronger and Americans are taking their Asia trips to Japan instead of China for obvious reasons but, given how far Japan is from the CONUS and length of stay, TYO is a far better entry point than KIX is for Kyoto as tourists can always take the Shinkansen down to Kyoto from Tokyo. I think UA will be able to survive on SFO-KIX in conjunction with the ANA JV with adjustments made in the winter as Americans are much more likely to do the off-season in Europe rather than Asia ditto JAL on LAX-KIX as that is the largest O&D flight for Osaka in the CONUS. I suspect JAL could probably operate LAX-NGO on a less than weekly basis with a low density 788 but I am not sure those yields would make the flight profitable. Once again, NGO POS would be the bigger problem rather than the US side.

In 1986 the route was SFO-LAX-SYD-MEL aboard a B-747 (sometimes making a fuel stop in AKL).

The SFO-LAX portion left from the International Terminal and wasn't sold as a stand-alone flight, so it was known as the "Nonrev Special". With so many senior UA employees at SFO, junior employees would have much better chances standing by for flights out of LAX. As a UA Reservation Sales Representative, several times I flew to Honolulu for the day, SFO-LAX-HNL-SFO, returning on the red-eye. I would bring my law books to study on the beach and plane.

Not really. NGO and OSA have always had very weak long-haul service relative to TYO, even during the late 80s and early 90s when many people thought Japan was on track to overtake the US. NW tried OSA-JFK/LAX flights for a brief period in the early 90s, as well as an infamous OSA-SYD fifth freedom flight, but they all did badly and I believe they never achieved daily service on any of those routes. After KIX opened in 1994 and created a glut in airport capacity, JAL and ANA both dabbled in long-haul service from Osaka, but those routes also didn't stick.

This has always been interesting to me because both cities have absolutely massive metropolitan populations and economies. In GDP terms, the Kansai region economy is roughly on par with metro Chicago, and greater Nagoya's is comparable in size to South Florida, Singapore, or Hong Kong. Plenty of massive global corporate HQs in both cities. They are each in the right "weight class" to support a lot more traffic, but for whatever reason, they never have. I think part of it is simply that they are more domestically-focused, and all of the international business tends to naturally gravitate to Tokyo, especially in high-margin fields like finance; also I think Tokyo companies are more likely to pay for premium cabins...

Also worth noting that Expo 2025 is happening in Osaka this summer, which should boost loads.

Also, and quite unlike very large US metro areas, aren�t Nagoya and Osaka almost exclusively O/D for air traffic? I think of Japan as having only two hubs, both in or near Tokyo.

They have some limited hub functions but are >90% O&D.

100% was LAX-AKL-MEL. Flew it a handful of times, once got upgraded to 1D on the full flight back from MEL and ended up sitting with the ABC News foreign correspondent (not Sam Donaldson, not Peter Jennings, name on the tip of my tongue) who had been covering the APEC summit in 1999 in NZ.

There definitely was a short period of LAX-MEL nonstop, never took it but would make sense it was weight restricted

The other issue with Osaka is the same split operation scenario between HND and NRT.

ITM (Osaka Itami) remains a decent domestic hub and I use it for connections in Japan but is far away from KIX which has all the international flights. Given the smaller population this only compounds the issue of not having enough domestic feed at KIX since the majority of domestic flights go to ITM.

It is at least 5 years down the road but would the operation of MGM's integrated resort (IR) on Yumeshima island in Osaka Bay change things?

Insignificant.

Interesting, in January, looks like there is a lot of award inventory for SFO-ADL but not to BNE, SYD or MEL.

Everything connects through ADL, both ways.

Did they really cut back so much capacity on their 3 biggest flights to Oz?

I don�t think anyone here on FT can fully understand United�s RM system.

But perhaps one reason is that United has data on those established routes so knows that they can hold on to seats for now. Adelaide is a new route, so no historical data, hence different availability.

I remember something similar when they started SFO-BNE.