Ual Emp

Rumours are that on April 6th The Lax-Akl will change from a 747 to a 777. There is no word on the Melb sector of that flight as yet. ???????

RichardMEL

I wonder if that could be seasonal? During the spring/summer down here AKL-LAX (and v.v.) is very tightly packed so wouldn't warrant a downgrade, but during the winters it usually is more empty.

Interesting. If they cut the AKL-MEL tag they could retime the arrival/dep at AKL to be more appropriate for NZ locals (IIRC an earlier departure out of AKL was more popular as it arrived in LAX early morning).

MEL pax would catch the 862 tag via SYD to SFO or LAX, or NZ codeshare to AKL.


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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.

Starman

I wonder if this will be the longest UA 777 flight?

NYC1

LAX-AKL is 6502 miles. JFK-NRT is 6745 miles (777).

basenji

I much prefer the 777 rumour to the one that I have been consistently hearing from WHQ - that LAX-AKL will be cancelled....

Rumour only at this point....

RichardMEL

Surely not?! LAX-AKL must be a money spinner for UA - if only from the US side than the NZ side (knowing how crap the NZ Dollar is). Hope it goes 777 at least then anyway.



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RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.

basenji

Yes, it is hard to imagine yet it is perhaps the most persistent route rumour I am hearing.....

Again, we can't take these things too seriously as rumours are rampant in these days of uncertainty in the airline business - it is somewhat difficult to filter out which ones have no merit because, well, things are crazy and one never knows what is going to happen next!

Lurker

Just flew out and back on the LAX-AKL-MEL and had a lovely chat to the flight attendant on the upper deck. She confirmed a sort of combination of all these rumors:

1. LAX-AKL would remain but would swap to a 777

2. AKL - MEL would be cancelled

3. Both of these changes would be contingent upon the Aussie Govt. giving UA the "permanent" go-ahead on the SYD-MEL flight.

Then the only ways into Mel on UA would be LAX or SFO - SYD - MEL. Her main concern was running a two engine plane across the pacific.

HHHHmmmmm? Just a rumor.

Lurker

das

If you think about it, it all makes sense.

Funneling MEL through SYD helps the loads from SYD, and keeps those flights on a 744.

Loss of MEL feed means AKL can't support a 744, so a 777 is perfect.

Apparently one of the major reasons LAX-MEL was discontinued was because LAX-AKL didn't have enough demand to be profitable standalone. I haven't looked at the data for awhile, but I believe that in some months LAX-MEL actually had better loads than LAX-AKL.

Maybe this rumored downgrade to a 777 for Auckland means that the LAX-MEL nonstop will return next winter for high season.

1K-SFO

That's interesting--I always imagined that the LAX-South Pacific flights were the longest ones in the UA system. But, I suppose, the JFK-NRT and ORD-HKG are probably longer. Is ORD-HKG UA's longest flight?

UA*AA

UA895, ORD-HKG is 7789 miles.

leroy11

From Webflyer's MileMarker:

SFO-SYD - 7,420 miles
LAX-SYD - 7,490 miles
ORD-HKG - 7,770 miles

So, ORD-HKG is currently UA's longest nonstop flight. LAX-MEL at 7,920 miles and JFK-HKG at 8,050 miles have held the title in the past before being dropped.

Seat 2A

Story was when CO dropped its South Pacific service that too much of the load was award travelers. I wonder where UA is in this regard?

das

CO dropped its South Pacific service because of low yields due to operating from HNL. These low yields were because business travelers find it much faster to fly to the South Pacific nonstop from LAX or SFO.

At the time, CO had no planes with range to make the LAX-SYD trip (even LAX-AKL would probably be a stretch in a DC-10), so they canned the service instead.

At least pre 9-11 and the Ansett shutdown, UA has done very well in the South Pacific. Lots of cargo and full fare business class travelers.

Joh

Actually CO ran service to SYD for years on a daily GUM-SYD flight after they canned the HNL-SYD. CO at that time were over-servicing OZ, with as I recall flights to MEL-SYD-AKL, and possibly even BNE, (?) and wiser heads may have just halved the flights etc. CO services GUM heavily from USA and HNL, but yes, none of the above were hardly a "direct" route. Many do not realise but CO still services Australia regularly to the Barrier Reef Centre of Cairns (CNS) - also from GUAM.

The reason CO pulled the GUM-SYD flights in around mid 90s was new management in IAH axing lots of routes and hubs etc, (like scaling down heavily in DEN) and not due to high FF loads, which after all are capped as high or low as they want them to be. Glen and I still have a pile of One Pass points and actually Series 8 reward travel levels from here are extremely low - from CNS to ANYWHERE in "Asia" or their many tiny Pacific destinations is only 20K coach or 40K First Class r/t with stop in GUM permitted. That is a real LOT of flying.

UA say that Australia is their 2nd most profitable I'tl route. They remain the ONLY carrier to offer SFO-OZ direct.

[This message has been edited by Joh (edited 01-12-2002).]