Jul 1, 2016, 10:36 am
Last edit by: IBJoel
27 March 2018
United Airlines suspends NZ service (Suspension Period: April 18, 2017 - October 30, 2017)
Per New Zealand Herald quoting UA:
Air New Zealand service between Auckland and Chicago
From Nov. 30, 2018, Air New Zealand will operate three times weekly, year-round service with its new configuration Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft. Flight time will be approximately 15 hours northbound and just over 16 hours southbound. Air New Zealand code share service will be offered on around 100 flights across the U.S. for convenient connections to Auckland via Chicago. United Airlines operates more flights from its hub at O'Hare International Airport than any other airline, with more than 500 flights to 147 airports across the United States.
United expands service between San Francisco and Auckland
Beginning in April 2019, United will extend service between its West Coast hub in San Francisco and Auckland to year-round with three-times-weekly service. In partnership with Air New Zealand, United's flight arriving in Auckland will offer passengers more than 20 connections across the region. The return trip utilizes United's extensive route network in San Francisco, which provides connections to the United States, Canada, and Latin America. United operates more than 290 daily flights from its hub at San Francisco International Airport to 79 airports across the U.S. and 26 international destinations. Tickets for the expanded San Francisco schedule will be available on united.com and airnewzealand.com later this year.
United service between San Francisco and Auckland will operate with a Boeing 777-300ER between November and March and will operate with Boeing 777-200ER aircraft between April and October.
From Nov. 30, 2018, Air New Zealand will operate three times weekly, year-round service with its new configuration Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft. Flight time will be approximately 15 hours northbound and just over 16 hours southbound. Air New Zealand code share service will be offered on around 100 flights across the U.S. for convenient connections to Auckland via Chicago. United Airlines operates more flights from its hub at O'Hare International Airport than any other airline, with more than 500 flights to 147 airports across the United States.
United expands service between San Francisco and Auckland
Beginning in April 2019, United will extend service between its West Coast hub in San Francisco and Auckland to year-round with three-times-weekly service. In partnership with Air New Zealand, United's flight arriving in Auckland will offer passengers more than 20 connections across the region. The return trip utilizes United's extensive route network in San Francisco, which provides connections to the United States, Canada, and Latin America. United operates more than 290 daily flights from its hub at San Francisco International Airport to 79 airports across the U.S. and 26 international destinations. Tickets for the expanded San Francisco schedule will be available on united.com and airnewzealand.com later this year.
United service between San Francisco and Auckland will operate with a Boeing 777-300ER between November and March and will operate with Boeing 777-200ER aircraft between April and October.
UA will now fly the 77W on SFO AKL when it resumes operation 29OCT17 - 22MAR18 (from SFO). Overall frequency will be 6 weekly, and increasing to 7 weekly from mid-Dec. UA73/74 is canceled.
http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/...as-of-01sep17/
http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/...as-of-01sep17/
Per New Zealand Herald quoting UA:
This change is in response to seasonal variations, which will also see United Airlines adding an additional three flights per week starting December 18, 2017 after resuming its daily Auckland to San Francisco services on October 31, 2017. This will increase services to a total of 10 United's flights per week during the high seasonal demand period. Passengers who have already purchased tickets during the suspended period are being contacted by the airline and offered flights on the Air New Zealand service instead. We apologise to customers for any inconvenience and advise that customers will not be out of pocket as a result of this shift in scheduling and will retain all frequent flyer benefits."
SFO-AKL JV w/NZ, all year UA metal, 77W Nov18-Mar19, 772 Apr19-Oct19 (+newORD-AKL NZ)
Jan 19, 2017, 1:59 pm
#302
Join Date: May 2014
Location: DEN
Posts: 256
I only was looking for my specific day (october 2) and the seats were there for 1 or 2 days so keep looking on your day and maybe someone at NZ makes the mistake again or maybe its not a mistake and they are opening a couple seats at a time and people that were either rebooked are filling those seats or new seats since they dont offer award tickets in J on NZ very often according to reports. Sorry.
Jan 21, 2017, 8:59 pm
#303
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 1
United Customer Service?
Has anyone booked a long flight in business using United miles, then a few months later, had United call to rebook the flight in economy? I’m not sure if this is the place to post, but I’m wondering who I can contact to get this issue fixed. I booked my husband using miles to AKL going through SFO. United called, said they were not going through SFO any longer and re-booked him on another flight with Air New Zealand. Although ANZ is a United partner, the UA cust. Svc. Rep says ANZ won’t honor the UA miles used, so my husband is now in economy. Who could I call to have United get him back to business class? Then, they called to change our return flights for our family of 3. Similar issue – not going through SFO, so they rebooked all of us going from PPT 10 hours west back to SYD to spend the night (now we have to book another SYD hotel), and we get home 24 hours later. For this mess, I’d like them to upgrade us to business, but I don’t know who to contact. I filled out their feedback form, but I don’t know if they’ll actually get it. It listed lots of errors and I had to change some info just to get it to submit. I’ve heard that tweeting the problem on United may get someone with authority to call, but I’ve never done that before. Has anyone else?
Jan 21, 2017, 9:17 pm
#304
Moderator: United Airlines
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Welcome to FT!, jbmccoy01
This is the right place to post. UA has dropped SFO-AKL service from April to Oct and there are many, many folks in your situation. It is very recent and still a bit confused. Suggest you review the last 10 days or so of this thread. (Back to post #150)
Bottom line, UA can not force NZ to accept the award tickets, especially in business class. Appears UA may be trying to work a deal but folks generally have had no luck with NZ. There is "no one to call" to make that happen. Some have re-routed via SYD and UA is opening up space of their SFO-SYD flights.
As for upgrades to business from economy tickets for the inconvenience, well you can try but less than 0.01% of that happening.
Following this thread should be the best place to monitor this situation.
UA has created a mess and doesn't seem to have a great recovery plan. With likely 20-30 booked business seats or more daily for 6 months -- there are likely many (4, 5, 6 ... ) thousand of business class passengers alone to accommodate . You are far from alone in this mess.
Bottom line, UA can not force NZ to accept the award tickets, especially in business class. Appears UA may be trying to work a deal but folks generally have had no luck with NZ. There is "no one to call" to make that happen. Some have re-routed via SYD and UA is opening up space of their SFO-SYD flights.
... Then, they called to change our return flights for our family of 3. Similar issue – not going through SFO, so they rebooked all of us going from PPT 10 hours west back to SYD to spend the night (now we have to book another SYD hotel), and we get home 24 hours later. For this mess, I’d like them to upgrade us to business, but I don’t know who to contact. I filled out their feedback form, but I don’t know if they’ll actually get it. It listed lots of errors and I had to change some info just to get it to submit. I’ve heard that tweeting the problem on United may get someone with authority to call, but I’ve never done that before. Has anyone else?
Following this thread should be the best place to monitor this situation.
UA has created a mess and doesn't seem to have a great recovery plan. With likely 20-30 booked business seats or more daily for 6 months -- there are likely many (4, 5, 6 ... ) thousand of business class passengers alone to accommodate . You are far from alone in this mess.
Last edited by WineCountryUA; Jan 21, 2017 at 9:24 pm Reason: link
Jan 22, 2017, 7:16 am
#305
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
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UA has created a mess and doesn't seem to have a great recovery plan. With likely 20-30 booked business seats or more daily for 6 months -- there are likely many (4, 5, 6 ... ) thousand of business class passengers alone to accommodate . You are far from alone in this mess.
We saw this before with BKK . . . UA cancels a flight months in advance without giving any apparent advance thought to how they will handle rebooking.
Last edited by Kacee; Jan 22, 2017 at 7:25 am Reason: clarified
Jan 23, 2017, 6:35 am
#306
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It's the award holders who are getting the worst of it. Per the memo quoted upthread, revenue pax are (supposed to be) getting rebooked in NZ J.
We saw this before with BKK . . . UA cancels a flight months in advance without giving any apparent advance thought to how they will handle rebooking.
We saw this before with BKK . . . UA cancels a flight months in advance without giving any apparent advance thought to how they will handle rebooking.
Just found out that UA suspended summer service to AKL.
Checked ticket: AKL-SFO is now on NZ metal, biz class. The returned is changed to SFO-LAX (UA F) and LAX-AKL (NZ C).
Overall, not a bad outcome. It could be worse.
UA really should honor these tickets, even if it's award C using UA miles. I guess I am lucky but others are not!
Jan 23, 2017, 9:51 am
#307
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: DTW
Programs: Dirt Status w/ All
Posts: 5,040
Looks like another minor (for most) change for those of us rebooked through SYD. UA870 SYD-SFO is still shown leaving at 10:30, but now show arriving at 7:15 instead of 7:00 (July 17).
My issue is that I'm connecting to UA471 to Detroit at 8:30, so my connection time is down to 75 minutes. Is that legal for an international connection in SFO? My issue is that this is booked as separate tickets - the SYD flight is an award while the DTW flight is paid. I did have them link the PNRs when I got the AKL flight straightened out. I always knew there was a risk but figured sticking with UA the entire way was better than moving to DL for the flight home. This is the only UA non-stop to DTW.
I plan on leaving it alone for now as anything can happen in the next six months, but do you SFO experts think 75 minutes is possible? I am sitting up front for both flights and have Global Entry. I will probably manage carry-on only too.
My issue is that I'm connecting to UA471 to Detroit at 8:30, so my connection time is down to 75 minutes. Is that legal for an international connection in SFO? My issue is that this is booked as separate tickets - the SYD flight is an award while the DTW flight is paid. I did have them link the PNRs when I got the AKL flight straightened out. I always knew there was a risk but figured sticking with UA the entire way was better than moving to DL for the flight home. This is the only UA non-stop to DTW.
I plan on leaving it alone for now as anything can happen in the next six months, but do you SFO experts think 75 minutes is possible? I am sitting up front for both flights and have Global Entry. I will probably manage carry-on only too.
Jan 23, 2017, 12:24 pm
#309
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Code:
STANDARD.D/D...D/I...I/D...I/I. ONLINE .50 1.00 1.45 1.45 OFFLINE .50 1.00 1.45 1.45 ** OR * ARE ALL UA-UA ID SUP FLT 1 - 9999 - FLT 1 - 9999 CANADA - CANADA UA-UA ID SUP FLT 1 - 9999 - FLT 1 - 9999 MEXICO - MEXICO UA-UA ID SUP FLT 6549 - 7914 - FLT 6549 - 9999 UA-UA ID SUP FLT 9590 - 9999 - FLT 6549 - 9999 UA-UA ID 1.45 FLT 6549 - 8014 - ALL UA-UA ID 1.45 FLT 8715 - 9999 - ALL UA-UA ID 1.20
Jan 23, 2017, 12:37 pm
#310
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Cake - assuming inbound is on time, and of course that's a substantial assumption. With carry-on only, you're likely to be in the UC within 30 minutes of the door opening.
Jan 23, 2017, 1:51 pm
#312
Join Date: Sep 2015
Programs: 1 thousand
Posts: 2,112
I've consistently had quick bag delivery with priority tags in SFO. Usually a few minutes after getting to the claim (with GE). However I've only ever arrived on UA, and never on other airlines.
Jan 23, 2017, 5:14 pm
#313
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Jan 23, 2017, 8:22 pm
#314
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I booked travel (one way SFO-AKL) during the extra flights peak Dec 2017, but it won't let me pick seats. It shows IPTE 777. Is the error message because the plane will get swapped (boo!)? Or just dot bomb being itself?
Jan 23, 2017, 8:28 pm
#315
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Northern California
Programs: I want to be free! Free!
Posts: 3,455
Are you booking right at the end of the schedule? If so, a GS agent once told me it takes a few days for seat assignments to actually become available. No idea why that would be or if it is true but if you are booking for what is presently the last few days on the schedule that may be the cause.