matrixwalker2012

Why does UA insist on doing midday departures to China and not midnight departures?

Currently, UA has to overnight SFO-China aircraft in China before leaving in the afternoon of the next day. If UA did midnight departures, the planes would only have to stay in China for a couple hours before turning around and coming back to SFO.

Furthermore, aren't midnight departures schedules more convenient for pax not seeking to waste a day in the air? Currently, if I have a mid-day departure, I'm wasting the day of departure, and then I land in the afternoon in China, and waste most of the day of arrival too. If UA did a midnight departure, I can have a full business day in the office, go to the airport, hop on my plane, and be on my way. And then when I arrive in China at 5/6am, I can have a full day ahead of me or catch connecting flights on Air China to smaller cities in China.

Furthermore, if UA did midnight departures to China from SFO, that would give connecting pax all day to get to SFO instead of having to catch 6am flights to SFO.

As much as I hate redeye flights, I find them to be the best way to travel without wasting entire days in the air.

mduell

The aircraft rotation works better for them this way, whereas it works better for the Asian airlines the other way.

Also timing for connecting pax in the other direction.

matrixwalker2012

How so? The aircraft currently needs to spend almost a full day sitting around in China before returning, so a midnight departure would mean the aircraft arrives at 5am and then leaves at 1pm same day instead of arriving at 3pm, and then sitting around until 1pm the next day.

What about connecting pax in the other direction? Under my scenario, the return flights to the US would still leave at their currently scheduled times.

Kacee

??? The late night departures burn two days. Arrival is +2 as opposed to +1 for the midday departure.

Certainly better for onwards connections though.

belfordrocks

the idea is that you have an entire day, fly, lose an entire day, arrive in the morning for the next day vs. losing the better half of two days.

bmwe92fan

I'm not sure what line of work you are in - but the last thing I want to do after being on a plane for 14 hours is get into a serious business negotiation. This is why I am not a fan at all of the proposed new route SFO-SIN - arriving early morning and then going to work in SIN doesn't work for me at all... I can;t imagine anyone being at the top of their game after a flight like that - sounds good in theory bit anyone that travels regularly knows that isn't true...

belfordrocks

Okay, even if you take the entire second day off, you still "lose" 2 days. Compare this to the SFO-NRT schedule where departure is 1110 (so you arrive at the airport say 0945, leaving downtown 0900), then arriving NRT 1510 (arriving downtown 1630-1700)... still the most productive part of 2 days lost.

bmwe92fan

As someone who travels for a living for business - and as so many here on FT understand - proper sleep is EVERYTHING - if I can get 6 hours at a hotel and then hit the ground running I am WAY better off than arriving early morning and pretending to be ready for the day....

Kacee

Well sort of. You technically "lose" two work days but . . . .

1. You get that +1 night in Asia and at least some sleep so your +2 day can be fully functional.

2. I tend to agree with bmwe92fan that the morning Asia arrival makes for a really crappy +2 day. Good for connecting onward to, say, deep SE Asia, but not for actually accomplishing anything (either work or tourist).

Pluses and minuses for both.

iflyuaaa

i prefer a night time departure. i find it so ahrd to sleep even in a flat bed when you leave at 11am (or 1pm going the other direction). i sometimes take the AA flight to DFW from PEK and connect back to SFO because it's easier to sleep (better product in addition to better timing, ie evening departure), then land in SFO around 10pm and sleep and well rested for the next day.

you can do this on *A by taking SFO LAX then the air china flight to PEK. my boss does that sometimes.

i definitely do not like the 11am SFO departure.

Kacee

People approach this differently . . . but I don't want to sleep on the westbound TPAC. That way I arrive Asia at night, tired, so I can get at least 3-4 hours of sleep, wake up ridiculously early, hit the hotel gym at 5 a.m. and have a really solid +2 day.

sinoflyer

AFAIK, BR and CI's midnight departures from LAX/SFO to TPE, as well as CX's LAX/SFO-HKG, are more popular than the afternoon ones. Fares for the late flights are also higher in general. Part of the reason is the onward connections they offer, but a good portion of local traffic also prefers the early am arrival. YMMV, but I do feel that I've lost a day when I arrive in Asia after a 12-hour trip, only to encounter bedtime shortly thereafter.

With the 788/9 in full deployment, I can envision late pm/early am departures to ICN and PEK complementing the afternoon flights. That would make a somewhat impressive mini-bank with flights to HND, SYD, and SIN.

minnyfly

When attempting a westbound red-eye schedule, SFO-China flights aren't long enough for good departure/arrival times, and aircraft utilization is even worse than it is now.

bmwe92fan

This is why Ambien (Zolpidem) was invented - and why the US military uses it for active duty personnel - which is how I fell in love with it - and I used to be like you - on a three hours flight I would sleep like a baby - put me on a red eye where you really must/need to sleep - I would be up all night.... A few cocktails and one pill changed my life...

iflyuaaa

but the flight lands at 3pm, so you can't really go to sleep?