dkc192

Just curious: what approximate timeframe are you seeing the PZ, and how much? Some flights I was eyeing (mid-December SFO-HKG and early January HKG-SFO) were at PZ9 I9 when the flight got loaded on Thursday, but all the space got pulled before I could act on it, within a matter of hours.

Kacee

My guess is they're mostly going to keep the PZ locked down for a while to see how the new flights sell.

dkc192

That's my guess too...especially given past experience with the SFO-AMS flight. Though the new second SFO-ICN frequency has been a hotbed of PZ in my limited searching (both before and after launch), so who knows!

findark

AMS has started seeing a fair bit of PZ and IN in the last month or two, at least IME.

CApreppie

I was going by this article: https://thepointsguy.com/news/where-...d-772-economy/

"Aspire isn’t a complete reinvention of the economy seat, of course — the design is very similar to recent models, including those on the United 777-300ER (77W) — but according to UA these are a bit wider, at 17.25 inches compared to 17.05 on the 77W."

Sad to "celebrate" a width increase of .20 to a still-cramped 17.25 inches.

oopl

Okay so the seat is incrementally (0.2") wider but are the armrests narrower?

CApreppie

I was wondering where they got the .2" width - it didn't say. That was one of the methods that I came up as well.

spin88

I don't know that SFO will intrinsically support higher fares, I think the issue is that SEA is a much smaller market (probably 1/4 the OD to HKG) and it is drivable to YVR, which has considerable competition, and resulting cheap fares to HKG. As a practical matter, for some people who live on the North side of Seattle (e.g. Everett) at some times it is probably quicker to drive to YVR than to SEA.

I think that this move - which hey, is good - has more to do with UA having to compete with CX's day and night offerings, and two other carriers, and (Props to Kirby for doing so, making the moves to try to compete). For the reasons you say, am/pm departures work better for different people, and my guess is UA thinks it will pick up some traffic now going via CX/SQ by having both options, and in particular the second flight ex-SFO will work much better for connection traffic, and a later departure from HKG will allow trans-boarder traffic to come in/fly in from China w/o having to come in the night before and stay in a hotel.

I have seen the same thing, full in the summer, at x-mas, and then over CNY, but otherwise there is often space, and cheap in Y. My guess is that this is a competitive response, i.e. knowing that protecting the J/corporate accounts traffic requires a second flight, even if the Y loads will not be so hot.

+1. Glad UA is doing this, but given upgrade space, and Y fares, I see it as defense, and a needed addition to compete, not an e.g. of so much demand they want to cash in on it.

EWR764

I am hopeful that United continues to develop an evening TPAC bank from SFO. The schedule flexibility is nice and the AM/early PM SFO departure push is maxed out. It also allows a later-than-the-crack-of-dawn departure from the East Coast if a SFO transfer is necessary.

Kacee

I will choose the late departure every time. That's at least 50% of the reason I've stopped flying UA TPAC in favor of CX/BR/SQ.
I'm pretty sure it will. There's simply more money and economic activity in the bay area, particularly in the sectors that tend to drive premium cabin demand.

uastarflyer

dkc192

+1 to all of this. Maybe they've seen how successful AA has been with its similarly timed LAX-HKG flight, which pushed them to launch this new SFO-HKG frequency. Hopefully they'll continue flexing their muscle at SFO and roll out similar flights to TYO (similar to NH's LAX-HND), ICN (shift that poorly timed second flight), and PVG.

uastarflyer

Kmxu

PsiFighter37

Haven't heard/read anything that indicates UA is planning on taking any more 788s. I believe they ordered 12 or 14 more 789s, plus 4 more 77Ws. UA's international route strategy this year has seemed to be more about fortifying existing destinations with routes from its hubs (e.g. DEN-FRA, SFO-AMS, SFO-DEL, etc.) as opposed to adding any new destinations, which it seems to be doing more on a one-off seasonal basis from EWR.