hirohito888

I flew this route last year in the summer, the load was decent >80% in both C and Y. C was full of mainlander tourists, so not sure what fares they paid, but mine was not expensive either. Of course this route was subsidized, but sad to see that the traffic/yields never materialized. I don't think UA will be bold enough to venture into other 2nd tier Chinese cities. Not a lot left to consider anyways, maybe CKG or DLC. (FOC and XMN are probably too low yield)

cesco.g

BKK is heavily contested by M.E. carriers, would love to see it back though.


Some new/expanded destinations - ZRH, MUC among others - are coming up.
The extra 787s might also further the end of the 764s, which are still in question to get the Polaris hardware upgrade at all.

username

Some thoughts/questions:

I think it was good that UA tried to do these things. Maybe Wuhan should be next to try - it is a much bigger city?

Maybe this was just bad timing - with the Dr. Dao incident and some people feel America does not like foreigners nowadays?

Don't Apple employees fly Economy?

What to do with all the 787s? Maybe use them on some of the thinner European routes and pull the 757s back to domestic?

PsiFighter37

JVPhoto

Not that it says much (I thought I knew all of UA's routes) but I had no idea this one existed....

mduell

At ~50% longer travel time.

1KChinito

My friend, who is an Apple employee, flies in business class West Coast to China.

sbm12

Or roughly the same, depending on where you're starting.

BKK remains a relatively low-yielding market. Even if the ME3 are ignored the options for connections across mainland China are also growing, keeping yields depressed.

goodeats21

Probably not the best thread to reignite this, but for the overall health of the network, it might be the smart decision to keep (or return to) some key destinations even if it doesn't maximize yield compared to other options. Just like it isn't smart to fly RJs on key business routes, because it drives people away from other parts of the network.

Personally, I have diverted funds away from United (both fares and spend on branded CC) because they no longer serve BKK.

There are a lot of interconnected pieces to this network / profitability puzzle. Obviously, the Secondary China Cities strategy didn't quite pan out...

DA201

Not too surprised, but still unfortunate it has to go. With the massive influx of USA-China routes to 2nd tier cities, it's hard to see UA starting any new routes to China in the near future. Hopefully they could use that aircraft for SFO-BKK or SFO-ICN-ORD/EWR-ICN-SFO.

dll

I did this flight in October. It was 100% full on the way to XIY. Most Polaris seats were filled within 24 hours of departure which I assumed to mean either nonrev or upgrades. On the return the load was ~100 across both cabins, only maybe 15 in Polaris. It was a nice flight, plenty of space to spread out!

travelinmanS

Believe it or not, the Chinese airlines generally offer a better in flight experience these days than UA. This is probably part of the reason why this strategy failed. As a PVG based flyer I now would rather take MU than any of the US carrier options to the states. US-China flying will be increasingly dominated by the mainland carriers as their service improves and the US carriers reduce passenger stickiness by devaluing their loyalty programs.

pushmyredbutton

At first, I thought UA was smart with the US - 2nd tier Chinese city routes, but then the influx of Chinese carriers doing the same ramped up. The 'one airline, one route' policy that governs Chinese carriers has resulted in some genuinely odd routes such as SFO-TAO and LAX-TNA to cement their dominance, even at a loss.

I suspect that all of this extra capacity into the US-Mainland China market hasn't done much except erode yields and drop fares. It would be interesting to see how many new US-Mainland routes were launched since the intro of SFO-XIY/CTU.

Long Zhiren

I think you missed it. If you fly these routes, you discover a few things when you try to lend a hand to the Chinese passengers.
UA had a number of good routes. I believe the problem is that UA is unfriendly to the Chinese market. UA is fine for American travellers. But if you are Chinese, you will find that UA's food is horrible. That the China destination flights serve food that "resembles" Chinese food is an insult on top of that. Very few of the UA China-flight flight attendants speak any Chinese. Finally, if you don't understand English, and switch IFE controls to Chinese, navigation to switch on Chinese subtitles, etc is difficult, and second there's next to nothing with Chinese subtitles or even Chinese language.
What was UA thinking?
Yes. The Chinese airlines will get to the same cities. But UA soft product and inability to serve a market drives the Chinese market away. They might try it once, but never again. And then friends won't let friends fly UA, and it's all over.

Kacee

Plus the Chinese carriers kill UA on fares, particularly J fares.