If those MSFT employees weren't already UA fliers (they probably weren't out of SEA), then this isn't going to have an impact on UA. If they are UA fliers, I don't think one route is going to sway them.

Can't reach BLR from SFO, so UA could have done it with a 30 minute fuel stop in SEA. And in the process, you lock up another Apple-like corporate account that has 6,500 people in Southern India. Great companies cannibalize themselves, befrore the competition does it. AA from SEA with a powerful Alaska feeder will be formidable on that route.

No, great companies don't chase after things like this. Do you know how many MSFT people travel between SEA and BLR each day?

A what? Ah, now I know who writes the ETDs I see in FLIFO every time a flight diverts.

How were those MSFT employees getting to India? It was either UA or Air India via SFO. Or some inefficient connection via Europe or Asia. You don't think a non-stop directly to souther India trumps those options?

English please.

Whenever a flight diverts, it gets a new estimated departure time (ETD) in United's flight information console (FLIFO). They are usually unrealistically short; things like 15 to 20 minutes wheels-to-wheels for a fuel stop, and inevitably get pushed back as reality incurs. The idea that a fuel stop in SEA would only take 30 minutes (are we still picking up these MSFT employees??) is unrealistic in the extreme.

No one flying for business is double-connecting in SFO to get from SEA to BLR. There are tons of one-stop options on all three alliances (CX, LH, EK, BA, DL to KLAF).

Correct.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that UA wanted to try this. By the time the SFO-SEA flight is added in, your duty periods are so long that you likely need a separate crew at SEA. You're also going to end up selling SFO-SEA tickets, so you're going to have to let people off. (Otherwise, you're flying a half-full 787). Because SEA-BLR is international, you have positive bag-matching, so now you have to segregate the bags and be ready to pull any for somebody who deplaned even though they weren't supposed to.

On the way back, you have to give everybody the chance to go through customs at SEA -- no way CBP is going to allow you to drop off some passengers but not others.

Realistically, you're probably looking at a 90-minute stop on the outbound and a two-hour stop on the return.

UA can't fly every single route.

77L can easily do it but UA doesn’t have any in line for orders does it? A359 could probably do it yeah. But as you suggest, probably a premium heavy config like SQ’s ULR would do the trick.

lol with the new Alaska OneWorld nonsense, I guess I can add OneWorld ruby to my bio next summer


But with SFO arguably having the largest GS/1K presence among more UA elites (I think?) you don’t think there’s enough of them that would rather take this route rather than connecting through EWR. I mean looking at the loads on SFO-DEL, it seems to be doing pretty well honestly.

Largest number of GS/1K have SFO as their home airport? It’s one of UA’s smallest hubs.

Correct; UA doesn't have the 77L. UA does have an A359 order in place, although I'm on record as saying that I don't believe they'll ever take delivery. If they do, I suppose they might go with a config similar to SQ. (I wouldn't have said that until they rolled out the high-J 763 configuration, showing that they're serious about trying a sparse configuration somewhere...)

Load factors aren't enough to tell how well a route is doing; you need yield information, which isn't published. However, I suspect you're right; with the right aircraft, UA could probably make SFO-BOM work. I'm just not sure they have that aircraft right now.

There's an awful lot of money in the Bay Area. It wouldn't surprise me if this were actually true.

I seem to remember that there were some stats floating around on this a while back. It's all the tech company people flying to Asia.

And I’ve actually never flown a high J aircraft of any kind. But in July will be flying high J in J from LHR-EWR so let’s see how it’s like. Curious if service is a lot slower because a lot more J seats or what the situation is. I’d imagine when it’s full, it’s extremely profitable for UA.

Don’t quote me on this but I’m pretty sure this is indeed the case. Every time I’m flying back home to sna out of SFO, it seems as if the GS check in area is always always full. And not to mention my sfo-sna flights have half the plane board during GS/1K before we even hit group 1.

Flying UA via SFO to BLR isn't the best routing (on top of potential delays at SFO). But I could see them going LH SEA-FRA-BLR, JAL SEA-NRT-BLR, or EK SEA-DXB-BLR, BA SEA-LHR-BLR, and on and on......

I don't know the intricacies of fuel stops, but if you're saying it's not practical, then fine. I still feel UA should find a way to make this route happen from SFO. An airline with $50 billion in revenue should be able to secure the frames needed for this route to defend one of their most profitable hubs. Southern India is 252 million people (5th largest country in the world standalone). The only competition is Air India, which is on its death bed. Last I heard, the government got zero bidders in the AI privatization auction...

Routes like EWR-CPT & SFO-PPT are cute (and I'm sure profitable) but at the core, UA caters to business customers, including tech where they probably have #1 market share. They are letting others encroach into their hard-fought high-ground and I don't think that's smart.

A hypothetical SEA-SFO-BLR flight is nearly 400 miles longer than SEA-DXB-BLR. I know people who have gone via CDG. The route through Tokyo is shorter, but I don't know of anyone who takes it because the flight times don't line up properly.