Incomprehensible “late evening” SFO-SEA service cut?
 

Bottom Line: at some time in the future (Jan 2013 or earlier), have found that the last flight of the day SFO-SEA will apparently be 7:30 pm rather than later, likely affecting connections from Hawaii & elsewhere, or even from The City.

Background: we’ve been traveling SEA-SFO-OGG & return several times year & the drill on the return has been ex-OGG early afternoon, arrive SFO around 8pm, then SFO-SEA on the “late” 10:30-ish PM flight. In fact, did this same itinerary just two weeks ago. Booked the same itinerary for this coming January 11th thru 18th, but yesterday got several phone calls from UA about a schedule change leading to a misconnect (arrive SFO 8:20, "depart for SEA, 7:30, huh?). Turns out that the “late evening” (10:40pm) flight on Jan 18 (UA351 when booked, now UA 5656 in the latest (inaccurate?) time-table) will no longer exist. Had a long conversation with an agent who found no alternatives after 7:30 pm ex-SFO. It’s hard to understand the logic for the change. OK, it’s a Friday nite, but so what? IME, this flight has been well-patronized. Is UA ceding this route to Alaska? Ahh, "Thank you for flying United, we understand you have a choice of airlines." UA Insider: can we get an explanation for this service cut or hopefully restore the flight?

That flight has poor loads every time I fly it. They are cutting it for revenue reasons. Maybe it will come back in the Spring or Summer.

But the 12:30am arrival in SEA means a lot of people won't take it.

-RM

Interesting......
I just checked SFO-PDX for Jan+Feb, and the 10:30PM departure remains on the schedule.

Flying from OGG to SEA, AS and HA are your friends. Non-stop service and no getting stuck in SFO. UA can't even make mainline work from SEA to LAX anyway. A very late night flight from SFO-SEA in the winter is not exactly a money printing flight. Oil prices are up and UA already announced additional capacity cuts. Marginal routes will be trimmed.

Hawaii yields are in the toilet. We've even seen sub-$300 fares as of late, and they're not mistakes. Fares in the mid-$300's are fairly common from the west coast.

If the flight was there mostly for Hawaii connections, that may be why it's gone.

Perhaps they are trying to improve their ontime ratings. That flight has abysmal performance.

So does the Seattle departure, but the agent said that's not correct; "must not have been updated" (yet?).

Agree...Last week I was able to pick up a couple of $278 LAX-HNL r/t tickets for a long weekend (5 days) escape the beginning of November.

SEA flights get switched up and cut/reduced to an RJ all the time in the low season. My 100% full 5:50am-6:30am (switches all the time :rolleyes: ) SFO-SEA Monday morning flight is getting downgraded to an RJ in the near future :td:

You will not find those prices for the 1st quarter of 2013. IIRC (booking experience in 1st week of Sept): SEA-SFO-OGG RT, for travel roughly in 2nd wk of Jan 2013, Fri-Fri approx $550, Sat-Sat (same week) approx $875. Last I heard, UA is not a charitable organization <gr>

That's a peak season in Hawaii, and it's way too early to be dumping tickets for 1Q13. There are UA returns SFO-OGG next month, however, from $299 on multiple dates.

Whether the aircraft is full or not is meaningless. It's the fares paid. If a full Y fare is 10x the cost of the cheapest fare, selling 10Y yields the same revenue as 100 el cheapo.

UA, just like every other carrier, is cutting capacity and heaviest hits are, not surprisingly to unprofitable flights.

Huhh? I just today bought a $331.00 rt to HNL for January 2013.

I've been bumped of that flight every time I flew it.

For what dates? Is there anything in October?