UA Adds Second Daily Nonstop Service between SFO-HKG (back to daily till 28 Mar 2020)
#76
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#77
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My guess is they're mostly going to keep the PZ locked down for a while to see how the new flights sell.
#78
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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!
#79
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AMS has started seeing a fair bit of PZ and IN in the last month or two, at least IME.
#80
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"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.
#83
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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'm with you. Economy fares are dirt cheap on that route. There's also plenty of PZ space on that route. I think the move was purely defensive as the Asian carriers are sucking away significant traffic because evening departures save a work day on each side of a RT. I think UA will take some flyers from Asian carriers, but nowhere near the 40% they're increasing capacity. Net, net is GPU clearance should increase and PZ should cotinue to be plentiful!
#84
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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.
#85
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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.
#86
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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.
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.
#87
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#88
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And add BKK,SGN,BOM,MAA,BLR,KUL,HGH,CAN,BNE,Fiji NS pairs...even on the ghetto-ized 788s
#89
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if UA orders, at least, 10-15 new B788. There is potential for success for some of these routes such as BKK and SGN. It is better to have LAX-SGN for 4-5 flights per week and the rest for SFO-SGN.
#90
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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.