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SFO-XIY (Xi'an, China) summer seasonal service discontinued {will not return in 2018}

SFO-XIY (Xi'an, China) summer seasonal service discontinued {will not return in 2018}

Old Dec 9, 2017, 6:30 pm
  #31  
 
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Originally Posted by Long Zhiren
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.
CA/CE soft product is better and prices are quite a bit lower. I am UA Plat. and get E+ seats, and even so I keep looking at CA/CE and likely will jump over at some point.
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 6:45 pm
  #32  
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Originally Posted by Kacee
Plus the Chinese carriers kill UA on fares, particularly J fares.
MU has been consistently more expensive than UA on PVG-SFO in J and they are also more expensive than any of the US big 3 on PVG-LAX. Granted I always use Ctrip to purchase these flights but at least on that site the US airlines are usually much cheaper than MU.
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 8:46 pm
  #33  
 
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Originally Posted by PsiFighter37

The 752s fly East Coast-Europe routes...787s would be too much capacity for those routes. Maybe they do something like IAD-PVG? SFO, LAX, and IAD are Dreamliner bases. Based on MUC / ZRH adds, maybe another seasonal route to Europe out of SFO...
As far as SFO goes, FCO would be the obvious choice. LIS might work too. But that's about it, as far as Europe goes. No Russia until the consulates reopen. And no need for SFO-AMS/BRU/MAD, etc.

Perhaps get a BKK trip out SFO......
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 8:57 pm
  #34  
 
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Originally Posted by username
What to do with all the 787s? Maybe use them on some of the thinner European routes and pull the 757s back to domestic?
They can always use the 787 to give SFO-PPT a shot.
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 9:05 pm
  #35  
 
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Originally Posted by RUAMKZ
As far as SFO goes, FCO would be the obvious choice. LIS might work too. But that's about it, as far as Europe goes. No Russia until the consulates reopen. And no need for SFO-AMS/BRU/MAD, etc.

Perhaps get a BKK trip out SFO......
I was doing my best to come up with new routes they could launch with a 787 out of SFO....didn't come up with much. Maybe BKK/SGN/PPT/CGK is all I could come up with. I don't think any of those are as far fetched as SFO-XIY was, albeit a bit longer.
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 9:32 pm
  #36  
 
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Hi all,
I booked this flight for summer 2018 with lifemiles; should I call united or call lifemiles to figure out what to do? And what can I expect to happen? Will United/lifemiles book al alternative route for me, even if there is no saver award space, or would they return my lifemiles and I will then have to figure out alternative arrangements? Thanks!
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 10:00 pm
  #37  
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Originally Posted by atuzai
Hi all,
I booked this flight for summer 2018 with lifemiles; should I call united or call lifemiles to figure out what to do? And what can I expect to happen? Will United/lifemiles book al alternative route for me, even if there is no saver award space, or would they return my lifemiles and I will then have to figure out alternative arrangements? Thanks!
You'll work with LifeMiles. It's up to them what your options will be, although you can ask them to call United and ask UA to open space if there's a United flight that would be useful for you.
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 10:05 pm
  #38  
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Originally Posted by atuzai
... I booked this flight for summer 2018 with lifemiles; should I call united or call lifemiles to figure out what to do? And what can I expect to happen? Will United/lifemiles book al alternative route for me, even if there is no saver award space, or would they return my lifemiles and I will then have to figure out alternative arrangements? Thanks!
You call the booking carrier (Avianca) the carrier that was the source of the miles. Becuase it was booked as a non-UA award, UA will not touch the ticket. What will happen, this will dependent on Avianca -- but first, do some research on what alternatives you can find with Lifetime miles. A full refund may be an option -- depends on the Avianca award rules.
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 10:55 pm
  #39  
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I agree the Chinese airlines offer better hard and soft products than the US legacy 3 carriers (particularly Hainan Airlines). I have several friends switched to Hainan from UA based out of the Boston area for their business travel.

i am told the UA Chinese American flight attendants speak terrible Chinese and Chinese passengers have problem understanding them.
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 11:29 pm
  #40  
 
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Originally Posted by UA_Flyer
i am told the UA Chinese American flight attendants speak terrible Chinese and Chinese passengers have problem understanding them.
Told by who? UA and other USA carriers will put a FA or more on flts to China that speak fluent Cantonese and Mandarin. Some even speak Taiwanese. The FA's must pass a language test to get these "cherry" flts. These are usually junior FA's with language skills.
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 11:50 pm
  #41  
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Originally Posted by kettle1
Told by who? UA and other USA carriers will put a FA or more on flts to China that speak fluent Cantonese and Mandarin. Some even speak Taiwanese. The FA's must pass a language test to get these "cherry" flts. These are usually junior FA's with language skills.
What does it take for FA to be Language Qualified? has a discussion on this. On top of that, the company also has problem distinguishing among the different language and culture of the 3 different Chinese markets (Mainland, HKG, TPE).
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Old Dec 9, 2017, 11:59 pm
  #42  
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Originally Posted by 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.
Just look at the Taiwan market. As China Airlines and EVA got bigger and better, UA, NW/DL and AA basically pulled out. It is a miracle that SFO-TPE came back and is still going. On top of that, their costs are all lower than UA's.

UA's food is worse, staffing level is lower and FAs generally are not as service-oriented (part of it is simply the culture - western services are just different). Ground service is another issue (Dr. Dao and Alice in SFO incidents: UA SFO Gate Agent humiliated a Taiwanese Student.) Then MileagePlus keeps getting worse. Not only it can't get Chinese passengers, it is also losing US-based passengers.
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Old Dec 10, 2017, 12:29 am
  #43  
 
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Originally Posted by UA_Flyer
i am told the UA Chinese American flight attendants speak terrible Chinese and Chinese passengers have problem understanding them.
This is also true at AA. Many fluent Chinese speakers speak terrible Chinese (this is not a contradiction).

Chinese Americans typically speak with American English syntax, which sounds funny to native Chinese speakers. (The Chinese translations of the flight safety video is an equal hoot to read along.) And if they do not continue to learn Chinese past around the 8th grade, they also tend to not know idioms that help express ideas with fewer words. (In the reverse, those of us more acclimated to English would find "You are welcome to travel by our plane," which comes directly from Chinese syntax, to be comical or perhaps even confusing, knowing that "Welcome aboard" gets the same point across.) Native Cantonese speakers also tend to struggle mightily with Mandarin, in both accent and verbiage, further compounding the language problem with mainland Chinese customers.

Now that there are more Mainland Chinese immigrants in America, the bigger pool of native Mandarin-speaking applicants will eventually (hopefully) resolve this issue.

Americanized Chinese sounds like this version of English. Found the photo!
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Last edited by sinoflyer; Dec 10, 2017 at 1:03 am Reason: added photo
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Old Dec 10, 2017, 6:51 am
  #44  
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Originally Posted by sinoflyer
This is also true at AA. Many fluent Chinese speakers speak terrible Chinese (this is not a contradiction).
Although not all the FAs on the Chinese carriers can speak fluent English, they all at least know a few key phrases and will gladly summon help from their colleagues if they dont understand you. I cant imagine being a passenger that only speaks Chinese on the US carriers where the FAs seem to think progressively raising their voices while repeating the chicken or fish question over and over will somehow get the passenger to understand.

UA, AA and DL have Bought into the strategy that customers will fly them even as they reduce their FFP benefits. I think the China market is going to be a situation over the next five years that shows, at least in this instance, they needed those strong FFPs to compete.
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Old Dec 10, 2017, 6:52 am
  #45  
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It has nothing to do with the brand; it has everything to do with the market for travel to XIY. If it was the brand but the demand was there, other airlines would be jumping to start service. One of the easiest ways to penetrate a market is when there is demand but lack of suitable alternatives. Thats not the case here.
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