sfo3388

Departures of UA900 and UA949 (LHR-SFO) are only two hours apart and before noon. I know UA has limited slots. LHR-SFO used to have an afternoon departure around 2pm. Seems LHR-LAX now takes that slot.

Why would United schedule two SFO flights so closely? BA has two daily flights and departure is about 4 hours apart.

DetroitFlyer

There are probably two connecting banks at SFO for those arrival times.

sexykitten7

The also do this EWR-LHR with only 45 min in between! I think it's a bit silly but maybe they don't have any big a/c available?

jsloan

There's no aircraft in UA's fleet with twice the capacity of a 764.

Furthermore, this is the offseason for NYC-LON travel. However, slots at LHR are precious, and if UA were to try to operate fewer flights during the offseason, they'd lose the slot -- permanently. They're essentially required to run the flights, and they're limited as to when they can run them because slots are assigned with a given time window. So, you end up with winter schedules that are designed to cause as little overall harm as possible so that they retain the ability to make money during the profitable summer schedule.

DELee

Then why not fly 752s instead of 763s during the slow season (at least for EWR)?

David

jsloan

They have in the past, IIRC. However, they may have found it's more profitable to use the 752s on the ps routes and the 764s to LHR than vice versa. Or perhaps TATL traffic was slightly less down this year than it has been in the past. I know there were a lot of complaints about 752s TATL because they tended to need to make a fuel stop in Canada on the westbound flight during the winter, but I think LHR-EWR is short enough that it shouldn't be an issue.

The one thing I'm sure of, though, is that running one large plane instead of two small planes -- OP's suggestion -- would be a big problem due to slot utilization rules.

DELee

Naw, UA just needs to buy and fly a stratolaunch and it alone will take two slots at LHR

David

mduell

High rates of diversions and minimum fuel declarations.

sexykitten7

And I just remembered they do the same at OGG occasionally. Although IIRC that has to do with the short runaway length. When I was there, the red-eyes were only an hour apart. I remember vividly bc I switched from the early to the later.

TomMM

The morning IAD-LHR flight is a 757 and that route is about 200 miles longer than EWR-LHR.

clubord

flyerbaby19

Frequency is great. Business travelers love the options. My most frequent route (non UA obviously) is PEK SHA. I rarely fly the flight I booked. I get there, go to the standby counter and take the next flight. The fact that it runs every 30 mins is fantastic. Sometimes they run every 15 mins. If an airline offered hourly frequency only, I would not fly that airline. And I pay full fare tickets for all my PEK SHA flights so I can easily make these changes.

So I think there is a premium that business travelers will pay for the frequency. That may not be why UA runs them so close together, but I have to think the benefit of it is part of the calculation somewhere.

StuckinITH

They had a shuttle like that on Iberia, Madrid-Barcelona. You bought your ticket, you showed up, they put you on the flight you reserved or the next one leaving (which meant less time in their lounge....).

SFHokie

FWIW there's also two relatively close daily flights SFO-PVG (857 departs around 1:20-1:40pm; 891 departs around 2:30-2:50pm) while on the return leg they are about 12 hours apart (890 departs 12:15-12:45am; 858 departs 1:15-1:45pm).

My guess is that is has to do with connection times and airplane utilization/servicing needs. But that's just a guess.

Aussienarelle

This truly annoys me as I would rather catch the LHR-LAX flight but the time it leaves is 2.10pm which is just a horrible time. I would rather catch a morning flight so catch one of the LHR-SFO flights (which ever is less expensive) and then connect to SAN. However, if I do not want to leave until the afternoon I catch the NZ flight at 3.30pm as it is a bit later than the UA flight as it gives me an extra 75 minutes in the city. It really boggles my mind that when they reduced the LHR-LAX flights from two flights to one flight they chose to keep the two LHR-SFO flights both in the morning and put the LHR-LAX flight in the afternoon, so LHR-SFO (am), LHR-SFO (am) and LHR-LAX (pm). I am no scheduling expert but find it hard to believe that it would be too difficult to make the order LHR-SFO (am), LHR-LAX (am) and then LHR-SFO (pm). However, obviously I do not understand the needs for the rest of the West coast customers.

I was one of those who got caught when they did have two LHR-LAX flights and was on the morning flight and then they reduced the flight to one and I got stuck on the afternoon flight - but only that one time. Hate the LHR-LAX pm flight