alextktan

Did not see this posted anywhere. Here goes: The IAD-PEK route was suspended/cancelled (or whatever the term used) during the pandemic, and with China reopening in January, I was wondering if anyone in this community knows (or hears) about when United will be reinstating this flight. With no nonstop flights to Beijing (have to hop to another stop), it's kind of inconvenient for us in the DMV area to fly to China. Anyone with insights? Thanks in advance.


alextktan

Lux Flyer

Everything I see shows PEK remaining suspended through March 24th for all US origins, however it doesn't exist in the schedule after that date until 5/31 at which point the NS appears daily operating SFO-PEK, but not from any other US gateways.


Edit: IAD-PEK appears on the schedule beginning 10/29. I would consider that highly speculative this far out though and not anything definitive

angetenar

I would not hesitate to guess that IAD-PEK will not resume until the 2024 summer season at the earliest.

UA_Flyer

My personal view is that IAD-PEK will be one of the last China bound flights to be resumed. There is not as much demand as other routes.

SFO makes sense and then EWR may be next, and then follow by ORD.

UA has already downsized the route from 744 to 772 to 788 just before Covid. I have seen many empty seats on the 788 when traffic was normal before Covid.

jsloan

Think of it as an opportunity to gain PQFs. As someone who almost never takes a nonstop flight -- welcome to the club.

IAD-PEK is unlikely to return until it's safe to overfly Russian airspace: A map from the Great Circle Mapper - Great Circle Mapper . You might be able to shave a few miles off of this, but basically you're looking at adding 20% to the distance. ULH flights are normally more expensive to operate on a per-mile basis, so, to make the flight profitable, UA would probably need to be able to extract 25-35% higher fares than they could pre-pandemic, despite cratering demand.

UA is currently charging that kind of fare on SFO-PVG, but there's a lot less demand on IAD-PEK than on SFO-PVG, and the more gateways to China they re-open, the lower they're going to have to price them.

sannmann

Remember, too, that there’s a geopolitical aspect to the potential resumption of this flight. Bilateral relations between the PRC and the United States are at a historic low. The current administration might not wish to send mixed messages to the Xi Regime by allowing a U.S. flagship carrier to resume nonstops to Beijing from Dulles.

I’m fairly certain United has a small government affairs office here in DC and that the staff in that office regularly talk with State, Commerce, DOT, key Hill committee staffers, and other stakeholders that may have a say in the matter.

Philipp Morgenstern

Will we ever see a US carrier launch a direct flight from Eastern US to China while Russian airspace is closed?

travelinmanS

They can't even get their SFO-PVG cash cow up to daily. Ain't no way they are opening anything to PEK until summer at least. IAD will likely not return at all with only SFO and maybe EWR returning.

I was at PEK yesterday, it was a ghost town at 8pm.

drewguy

Put aside the optics, with US-PRC relations as they are now there's very limited gov't travel to China. And while that's not a primary revenue driver (just filling economy) it trickles down to the various private sector people in delegations and so forth. If Blinken cancels a trip hard to see lots of other gov't employees going.

(And I think UA's gov't affairs office may be bigger than "small")

Kmxu

UA is milking its cash cow too much!

The SFO-PVG flight is half empty even at 4 times per week because competitors' (other than DL and AA) fares are, at least, 50%, cheaper than UA's. Only OD traffic between SFO and PVG may be willing to pay for the premium. The connection traffic has more options with other airlines and fares are about half of what UA is charging now. This explains the half-empty UA flights. Of course, the COVID testing requirements damp the demands at this moment.
Well, put IAD-PEK as a pipe dream for a lohg while.

kb1992

+1

UA is too aggressive in pricing SFO-PVG. Last Sunday a friend was flying this route.

Few days before the flight, UA wanted $3,600 for economy, $8,000 for Premium Plus, and $14,000 for J. Crazy.

You can fly to HKG/NRT/ICN/TPE then connect to PVG or other PRC cities for much, much less.

After take-off, I looked at the seat map. J had one open seat (which means everyone on upgrade list cleared), and Y was 60%+ empty.

unitedbusiness

Who would actually want to go there ?!

kb1992

Relatives, family members who have not visited their loved ones since 2019.

There are millions of Chinese Americans here too.

Some business people too.

jsloan

VFR traffic is not UA's bailiwick. VFR tends to be the most price-sensitive category of traveler and is unlikely to pay the fares UA wants for nonstop travel.

There are airlines that make a business out of VFR travel, but UA isn't one of them.

Longboater

VFR traffic, which hasn't been able to travel between the PRC and US in years, and those who do business in the PRC that have been restricted going back and forth. As for leisure and premium leisure traffic, especially the latter as the pandemic recovery for United has largely created this new travel class, is not going to the PRC and will not be going anytime soon for obvious reasons.