JMBResona

I might be widely off the mark, but apart from the Samsung personnel, how often will those Korean-Americans make trips to Korea? Even if they all went home several times a year during holidays and vacations, that doesn't necessarily justify a high-frequency year round service.

Although I'm probably making a massive generalization, if occasional Korean/Korean-American travelers are anything like the Japanese casual travelers I know, than they probably have a strong preference for Korean airlines over foreign ones--especially considering when considering the fact that home-based flag-carriers have a better reputation vs. US carriers. Even when I'm discussing plans with my family, they frequently say "why won't you just come home direct with ANA/JAL?" Thankfully, they've gotten used to my circuitous routings, but still...

In high school, most of my Korean friends/acquaintances shared Ubers/taxis to take the midnight KE flight out of JFK, and I'd bump into most of them at immigration at JFK when I fly back. Most of them were KE Morning Calm members, and (although this is an assumption based on their accounts) they all grabbed a couple of ramens at the KE lounge before flying out.

hirohito888

There are 3 daily on JFK-ICN, 2x on KE and 1x on OZ and all on A380. That's almost 1,300 seats/day. (For comparison, NYC-TYO with 5 daily has similar seat count, but with more premium configurations).

Unless UA decides to deploy 789 out of EWR, I think DL would be first to start JFK-ICN (and even that's questionable given DL's JFK TPAC strategy).

ContinentalFan

UA_Flyer

If there is money to be made, I think UA will add frequency.

I can imagine similar questions on the AA and DL forum on SIN and HKG.

warrenw

Thanks for the info I didn't know about the change! I'm going off of 3 month-ish old data. Interesting they brought the 748 back.

Actually ICN is already at 60 million. They are also going to be building a second satellite terminal, although that's 10+ years away. Also, folks who live down south like in Busan still take the train to ICN to fly out, so ICN really has a national reach.

You are correct they have flooded the market. However, I've flown OZ out of LAX twice (usually fly UA out of SFO) and both times the flight was packed, no empty seats. Actually every time I fly out of SFO the flight is fully booked, although I usually fly near the weekends and not midweek so I'm not sure what the load is during those times.

I don't like T2 either, it's obvious they took a lot of cost cutting measures. The other gripe I have with the airport in general is they have no priority security, although I blame national pressure due to the chaebols on that one though.

You're also forgetting that folks in Korea want to fly to places like NYC and LAX. They're very popular vacation destinations. And remember, ICN is drawing nationally so they have a draw of ~60 million people to use their airport.
Samsung has a contract with UA believe it or not for their execs.
And while Koreans may have a desire to fly national carriers, they are also looking for a good price which UA beats out both KE and OZ.

warrenw

UA has the government contract/rate SFO-ICN - I wonder since they don't have it on other ICN routes that that's a main reason why they don't compete in other markets.

ExplorerWannabe

If you think there's enough traffic to compete with the other airlines going to ICN, you can certainly set up your own airline and show UA how it's done ...

PsiFighter37

Wouldn't be surprising...there's a reason why UA ended all their ME3 routes.

katan

There was and is always the "Fly American" component of these contract rates. And I don't mean AA, I just mean an American airline. The ME3 only indirectly has something to do with it. DXB was apparently whacked when JetBlue flew there, and oh yeah its a code share on Emirates. The rest of the UA destinations there have all been beat down by the code share. DOH/KWI/BAH/DXB all gone because it was easier to code share and bid the contract. The other spot check was that Delta flies to BAH - operated by KLM.

So while I think these flights are complemented by a Government rate, this code share madness to me says that it better be profitable or someone will work around it.

John Aldeborgh

I don't disagree the new (2nd) terminal is not convenient if your transiting and need to move from one terminal to the other. The bus is not a good solution. The new Terminal, as a facility seems very nice, I've used it a couple of time even thought I fly mostly *A.

One suggestion to folks flying to/from Korea. Use the City Airport Terminal near the COEX in Seoul, it's called CALT. This allows you to use the check-in, take a non-stop bus to the airport and largely bypass the security line, you will use the Airline Crew security line, plus there is a dedicated CALT immigration line. I also have SeS (Safe Entry System) the Korean version of Global Entry. Korea has a partnership with the US so if you have Global Entry the enrollment in SeS is fairly easy. When I use both CALT and SeS, getting through ICN takes less than 10 minutes. The only thing to remember is you must check in 3 hours and 20 minutes before your departure. Given the bus ride is an hour it's reasonable.

ryman554

+1

There are two city check-in areas, but the one for UA is near the COEX. The one near the airport train is for Asiana and KE only(?). Sadly, it's a bit out of the way for those coming from the south, and if one has carry-on luggage, I've not found a great place to drop it off to walk around the city.

Note APEC works well for this, too, and you don't even need to check in remotely. I've been gate->curbside and vice versa in under 20 minutes if I hit the shuttle train right with just APEC.. not sure that SeS gives you anything else.

drewguy

That was the real killer - eliminating the NRT-ICN UA flight, which meant that none of the IAD/EWR/IAH/ORD/DEN flights had a UA metal connection, with the Asiana alternative not usually pricing attractively.

It's a tough route to serve from SFO, because the mid-morning SFO departure has to turn immediately in ICN in order to get pax to SFO in time to make midday flights to the east coast. If the SFO departure were later then it couldn't turn in time to connect passengers in SFO to flights to east coast.

warrenw

Right you can use City Airport Terminal for UA, but you can also use Seoul Station for Asiana, Korean Air, Jeju Air, and like one or two others. It's worth it just to use the crew security line once at Incheon.....

Good advice for SeS, it's a huge time saver.

Yeah I definitely dislike that SFO-ICN is the first flight out of SFO (for the international UA departures) because it makes it a tight connection for a lot of connecting flights.

Channel 9

Agreed fully. I won't fly Asiana for this very reason.

drewguy

They're no better once they land:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8351276.html