jimmc66

John Swire & Sons, LTD, the British conglomerate that controls Cathay Pacific, began signaling in 2010 that the "glory days" of HKG were being manipulated to an end. Singapore is too far away to replace the HKG hub. Most travelers will not use Mainland airports as replacement hubs. It remains to be seen if Japan can take up the slack.

Steve M

Or ICN.

HNLbasedFlyer

With missles flying over Japan and ICN only 200 miles from N Korea I don’t think any airlines are going to make huge investments in that region.

kb1992

They really don't have a choice other than ICN and NRT.

PVG and PEK? I'll avoid them.

HNL, GUM? Too far.

TPE, MNL, SIN? Not really attractive.

UA_Flyer

UA does not need to have a "hub" or "focus city" in HK.

UA now runs several point-to-point flights between US and East Asia destinations. For those destinations where UA does not fly to (BKK, KUL, CGK, SGN to name a few), SIN, NRT, ICN and TPE provides options for connecting to these destinations on partner airlines in *A. I have done that many times and never really consider HKG is a preferred connecting point. There are *A carriers based out of SIN, NRT, TPE, ICN (may not be much longer) provide better options and lounge access etc than HKG will ever can.

I have flown in and out of HKG a half dozen times to/from US this year already and I don't really miss not having UA. NH via NRT or fly donw to SIN to catch UA 1/2 are just as convenient.

For those focusing on using HKG to enter China, that door is shut. It is now a quota based system of 1,500 a day.

Look forward on HKG will never be instead looing back on HKG used to be.

moondog

I don't mind ICN, but since OZ is leaving the party, I can't imagine what airline UA would partner with to make that a viable option. In theory, they could sell KE codeshares...DL might not like that so much.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I think NRT is a bit tight on slots and ANA already provides connections. TPE might be the best geographically, but Boeing/United probably reluctant to provocate the Mainland. There's really no totally ideal location.

gokeeper

Agree, transfer via TYO is perfectly fine, and I always enjoyed the long layover at TYO. I have ~10 hrs during the day at HND on both part of my YYZ-SIN trip next month, really looking forward to go back to Japan.

lsquare

In retrospect, ICN wasn't that bad as I was able to take a shower at the OZ lounge. The lunch food spread was much better than the breakfast food spread. Much better!

oopl

It appears UA has further pushed back the resumption of SFO-HKG from Jan 4th to Feb 10th.

rtool

And they just cancelled my HKG-SFO in Jan without any notice

WineCountryUA

Probably occurred last night, in the regular weekend update, and notices will be going out in the next week or two (when trip is not pending and is multiple months out -- such as 3 months out). This is the typical UA pattern.

rtool

Didn't realize "no notice until 3 months out" is the norm; this is the 2nd cancellation for this HKG-US award booking.

The agent mentioned only being to look for award inventories on LH, TG, and SG. She mentioned "Asia Airlines", I'm assuming she meant OZ; I declined, since HKG-ICN would be in Y and the date doesn't work for me.

Ended up settling for HKG-HND-EWR, which is only available on Thursdays, with a 20h layover in Tokyo. Hope the JPY tanks more...

WineCountryUA

No it isn't, but when the cancellation is well in the future, the notifications can take a week or two or more. There are not immediate.

moondog

Assuming NYC is your destination, why not fly CX? The current fares aren't especially expensive, and you can fly nonstop.