east_west

SFO-PPT is clearly a leisure-heavy route that seems to be doing well, and this is probably what Kirby is referring to. But it is half the great-circle distance of BKK, and costs also matter.

SFO and AMS are both large biotech, tech, finance, and academic centers, with affluent populations. All of those are ingredients to corporate J tickets, and clearly the route will be successful, it is just whether UA can eat some of KLM's lunch.

Unfortunately, I don't see any of these ingredients at BKK, so it would have to rely mainly on USA->BKK tourism to support an 8000 mile route. The main selling point is the fact that there are currently no direct flights to the USA, but perhaps there is a reason for this. I haven't followed the Thai economy closely, but my understanding is the political situation since 2014 (around when UA bailed out) is not good, and the Thai growth rate has not been on par with other emerging economies.

BLR is a large tech center and this route might do well, but it is 250 miles farther than SFO-SIN (1000 miles farther than SFO-DEL). It also requires traversing mainland China airspace and the Himalayas. Is it technically possible without significant seat blocking?

PsiFighter37

catahoulafriend

ContinentalFan

jsloan

The US-China bilateral treaty is extremely restrictive. UA just applied for a second EWR-PVG slot (along with DL, they're hoping to get access to some frequencies that AA has been holding onto without using). Considering that they could have asked for IAH-PVG instead, which, as a new route, would likely have had a better chance of being approved, I'd say UA thinks CA has already captured most / all of the China-Houston traffic.

JimInOhio

I'm not saying there's an antitrust case here. Instead, if they looked closely enough they might not like some of the results from these TATL partnerships and, perhaps, could start taking a different view of them.

seagar

While probably not an interest to many, would love to see ORD - RHI. Currently, the only option is Delta, ORD - MSP - RHI, at an average price of $400 during the summer and most flights booked. It seems a regional jet would do well, even if only 1x per day.

jsloan

The population of Oneida County is only about 35K; I don't know that UA will want to take on DL in that market, especially when they already have service to CWA, which is only about 70 miles away.

AceReport

As someone who would love to see UA fly into BLR I'm not sure if the business would support it. I've been on a half full LH 744/8 on my FRA-BLR so many times I can't count. In fact I almost relay on getting an empty seat next to me. Once even had the 12 seat J mini cabin all to myself. Since the UA price on LH connection into BLR is almost always lower (at least in J) I have trouble imagining that a significant enough amount of UA purchasing BLR traffic is connecting through DEL or BOM (though I do if the 77W on the BOM-EWR price is at all competitive). Again this is for J I'm not as current on how the Y fares price out.

Would also take 3 777/787 aircraft to run daily service to BLR from the USA, that's a lot of capacity to fill.

Azmordean

They'll never do it, but I'd love to see SJC - IAD or DCA. It's bizarre to me that I can get to Tokyo and London from SJC, but not Washington DC. Maybe the business isn't there, or more likely, they bet people will drive up to SFO for a non-stop (sadly a good bet in my case). But if any carrier ever decides to offer a non stop San Jose - DC, I'll move the majority of my business to them / their partners straight away.

N104UA

SFO-PER is 7955nm which is ~125nm more than PER-LHR, so a 789 could theoretically make it (possibly with weight restrictions), however I honestly don't know if there is enough demand from WA to the U.S., QF from PER-LHR can get connecting traffic from the east coast (~35% I believe), but no one would connect in PER to get to the US.

N104UA

Now that UA has started a few of my prior wishlist, my new list is:
​​ORD-TXL (switching to BER when it opens in 2058), as I hate connecting in EWR

DEN-SRQ, for more than 4 Saturdays in March (although interestingly on the recent IAD-SRQ announcement, the press release said UA serves SRQ from DEN, so here is hoping

DEN-AMS

SFO-BNE

jsloan

SJC-DCA won't happen, if only because of slot limits at DCA. SJC-IAD would be a possibility. I think SJC is in a bit of a funny place in the UA route system; they're always going to be afraid of cannibalizing demand into SFO.

For comparison's sake, SIN-SFO is 7339 nm and SIN-LAX is 7621 nm -- and, the latter UA wasn't able to make work profitably. Also, QF has their 787-9 at 42J/28PE/166Y= 236 total; UA's is 48J/88E+/116Y = 252 total. I really don't think UA could launch SFO-PER without significant seat blocking.

One thing they might do is try adding something like SFO-CNS-PER or SFO-BNE-PER. They have a couple of these domestically now on Untied Express, and while it's obviously not as nice as a nonstop, it could allow them to serve two markets, neither of which might be profitable on their own.

UAL250

IAD-ICN. Two capital cities, lots of Korean-Americans in the DC area, and connections to Asiana in Seoul. I guess they're just afraid of competing with Korean Airlines or there's some sort of Asiana/UA agreement where UA can't fly it since it'd cut in too much to Asiana's US-ICN routes.

east_west

IAD/EWR-ICN would make sense, but KE is very strong in both markets (in fact KE also just launched ICN-BOS). However, given financial troubles of OZ, the NYC route may be something UA will want to jump on. UA and OZ are Star alliance frenemies, so I don't see any problem with UA getting into the game.