pushmyredbutton

This. It still amazes me that UA is completely absent even though AC flies multiple times per day.

jsloan

Apparently the carrier refused to bid for UIN-ORD and CGI-ORD unless they were allowed to fly it as a triangle. I believe each city gets one nonstop pair and one one-stop pair each day, although it may have half that on the weekends. (i.e., they'll fly ORD-UIN-CGI-ORD and ORD-CGI-UIN-ORD each once per day).

They are actually selling the UIN-CGI nonstop flight, though, for anyone who happens to need that route.

craftyabs

I would love CMH to SFO so I could have much better 1 stop options to Asia on United metal. when Southwest started CMH to OAK a few years ago, I assumed that a United flight to SFO is no longer viable, but can hope. CMH to LAX would be nice too, but I can at least buy on Delta to LAX and separate on UAL if need be.

DA201

I agree. 1x 789 service to ICN is ridiculous. ICN-USA is the first or second largest TPAC market, and UA is partners with Asiana.

JVPhoto

Does UA need to add more capacity to USA-ICN?

JFK-ICN = KE 2 x A380 OZ 1 x A380
IAH-ICN = 0
DEN-ICN = 0
DFW-ICN = AA 1 x 787
ORD-ICN = KE 1 x 777
LAX-ICN = SQ 1 x 777 OZ 2 x A380 KE 2 x A380
SFO-ICN = UA 1 x 787 OZ 1 x A350 KE 2 x 777
SEA-ICN = DL 1 x 767 OZ 1 x 777 KE 1 x 777
DTW-ICN = DL 1 x A350
ATL-ICN = DL 1 x A350 KE 1 x 777
LAS-ICN = KE 1 x 777
HNL-ICN = KE 1 x 747 OZ 1 x 777 LJ 1 x 777

PsiFighter37

One of the nice things about UA (for all its faults) is that they have Wi-Fi on all their planes. Admittedly, it does not work 100% all the time, but that's one reason why I don't really consider OZ when looking at longhaul TPAC routing...their planes don't have Wi-Fi, and from what I have read, their IFE isn't all that great either.

That doesn't really make a difference from a capacity standpoint above, but it would certainly be nicer to have an EWR-ICN route to consider instead. Not sure it could support a 772/77W capacity though (no 789s given the current basing of the Dreamliners).

truncated

Some corrections:
JFK-ICN KE 1x 388 1x 748, OZ just downgauged to a 772 for the winter
ORD-ICN sees OZ 1x 772 5x weekly as well
and KE is less than daily (5x weekly?) on SEA-ICN

A case could be made that there really aren't that many East Coast - ICN options, and OZ/*A seems to be struggling in particular... EWR-ICN might be plausible seeing how OZ just went from an A380 (12F/66C/417Y) to 772 (24C/277Y); pretty huge cut in premium capacity into NY there...

JVPhoto

I was looking at dates in April for flights to EU and just plugged in ICN. I didn't look at daily vs not but that's what April was showing for aircraft.

Forgot to list IAD-ICN KE 1 x 777

findark

I thought the most telling thing about UA service to ICN was that they really struggled to fill the 747s on SFO-ICN.

And IAD, not even enough of a city to end up on this list

Dr_wanderlust

HAN, SGN, ULN, and BKK

I can dream, right?

warrenw

They can't? I fly the route ~6 times a year and it's almost always full. I will caveat that to say that I'm usually flying out of ICN thurs/fri timeframe which is heavy biz travel, but even still it either goes out full or nearly full. And when people say it's an easy GPU to clear, well yes if you're flying on like a Tuesday.........

I agree especially since UA has the ICN-SFO route and has to support all the gov pax going to Korea. Yes, there is a lot of competition from KE and OZ especially to the west coast, but O/D pax alone could fill the plane not to mention connecting pax.

I think IAD would be a good choice, as well as either EWR or ORD (EWR probably is better because NYC is a HUGE market for Korea). I wouldn't think IAH would be a good option, KAL is pulling out of IAH due to lack of pax.

It really seems that traffic is light to the east coast, which is where they could add a route. ATL has a large Korean population, maybe adding a *A flight to there would be beneficial.

DA201

If UA announced a JV with OZ tomorrow, different story. Until then, yes they need more capacity. NYC-ICN has a little over 900 PDEW. During peak season, KE/OZ offer about 1300 seats each day both ways. KE/OZ connect a good portion of their traffic (I know just from flying both of them on JFK-ICN) and are receiving little feed at JFK (maybe KE is now but they were flying 2x A380 before DL). UA has the advantage of feed at EWR to destinations alongside the east coast. Their 772 only seats 267 passengers, which would bring the total number of seats to about 1550. That would make a PDEW to seats ratio of 1:1.7, which is really low considering how much connecting traffic there is. For comparisons sake, NYC-TYO has a PDEW to seats ratio of 1:2.1.

findark

I'm probably guilty of making generalizations. My statement was based on looking at Aug-Sep-Oct of this year, where I found very plentiful O and IN space, as well as of course R, and I saw many flights go out ~60% full in the back. Yes, peak days were probably quite a bit more full than that - my focus was the week I took a trip to ICN, where there was ultimately open R even day of the week ICN-SFO (although we didn't fly that way), including Thursday and Friday.

However, given the downgauge to 789, I'm guessing UA might agree.

warrenw

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just giving my experience. And I have personally never seen R space for an entire week looking into the future, but not saying it doesn't occur. I guess I wish that UA had more capacity to ICN, especially now that they've pulled out of the NRT-ICN route - it basically has dropped the number of premium seats available to me (unless I take an inconveniently timed flight to NRT). Of course giving it the 789 suggests that they consider it more of a "long and thin" route.... And suggests an east coast addition to be slim.

Mrtrash757

I'm a bit shocked because I heard Cape Air was going to switch their STL service to ORD...

Wow. Wonder how this will do.

Would love to see a source on this one.