boss315

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel...37/?csp=travel

Interesting increases here....UA will be left in the dust? ...again

CALMSP

but you left out the important part of how this is simply swapping airplanes like DL already does with AF. While offering a few seasonal additions like SFO-LHR.........something that UA already offers double daily. DL already flies 2x daily EWR-LHR on VS metal, it will now simply equate to 2x daily, one DL metal, one VS metal.

Therefore, no one is left in the dust. You also failed to mention that VS is terminating service in YVR/NRT/BOM.

sinoflyer

The Virgin-branded airlines, especially VS and VA (Australia), are undergoing huge disarray. VS is looking more like a London-feeder airline for DL. Good luck to them on this new arrangement.

787fan

And killing CPT as well.

unavaca

More UA forum trollbait

sbm12 covered this with more details this morning, including information on what VS is cutting to make this happen (spoiler: YVR, NRT, BOM, CPT). http://blog.wandr.me/2014/09/rise-delta-atlantic/

787fan

Bravo. Well said. That's how I feel about the OP's of about half the threads on this forum lately.

Yoshi212

Correction it's VS

sbm12

Not entirely. There are some swaps - MAN-ATL and one EWR-LHR - but some are real additions. The second daily LAX flight, the DTW service and the fifth JFK flight are all net new adds to the schedule from everything I've seen. The second ATL, MIA and SFO flights are seasonal (and SFO is only 5x weekly, not daily).

This is a net increase in TATL operations to LHR by VS and a shift in their marketing strategy, leveraging DL's feed in many cases and the TATL JV they have in others to help actually be profitable. But it is unclear that adding a handful of flights is enough to really skew the market too much. United isn't going to pick non-hub cities to serve TATL and there probably isn't much need for them to do so. VS already owns the slots at LHR and these are likely to be more profitable than the four routes being dropped. But not enough to change UA's behavior. Because most of the time that's the case.

lhrsfo

For me the interesting bit here is the SFO service. UA has gently lowered its capacity on this route both by reducing 747 service in favor of 777 and by making the second flight summer only a couple of years ago (they were 3 daily before 911). VS put a four times weekly second service in two years ago for one summer only but is rumored to be swapping the 744 for 789s as soon as deliveries permit. Meanwhile BA is rumored to be very short of C capacity on the route with its twice daily 747 and to be looking to replacing one with a 380 as soon as deliveries permit.

Overall there will be useful extra capacity on this route from UA's two competitors.

787fan

It's very much due to geography. For BA it's SFO-LHR-Europe and SFO-LHR-Africa and SFO-LHR-India. For UA, there are very few connections that SFO is superior over ORD/IAH, so it's very heavily O&D on that flight.

goalie

This is not UA related so time to close

goalie
UA Forum Co-Moderator