In another sign that the reopening of Asia will continue to lag behind the rest of the world, United Airlines has updated its transpacific schedule, with many flights to Asia now dropped during the spring and summer months.
United Airlines Cuts Flights From 2022 Transpacific Schedule
United Airlines’ extensive route network to Asia has been on hiatus for two years during the pandemic (with Hong Kong on hold even longer). While United has maintained limited service to most nations in the Asia-Pacific region, its schedule is just a shell of what it once was.
Prior to the omicron variant, United expressed optimism that travel would return sooner than anticipated and we’ve seen United load 2019 schedules in by default for those looking several months out to book.
While United typically finalizes its international schedules 30-60 days prior to travel, Simply Flying notes that United has dropped many transatlantic flights all the way until the end of October, which technically marks the end of the summer schedule.
This impacts a number of flight, including:
- Chicago (ORD)
- Beijing (PEK) – pushed to October 29th
- Shanghai (PVG) – pushed to October 29th
- Houston (IAH)
- Sydney (SYD) – pushed to October 28th
- Los Angeles (LAX)
- Melbourne (MEL) – pushed to October 28th
- Shanghai (PVG) – pushed to October 29th
- Newark (EWR)
- Beijing (PEK) – pushed to October 29th
- Hong Kong (HKG) – pushed to August 1st
- Shanghai (PVG) – pushed to October 29th
- San Francisco (SFO)
- Beijing (PEK) – pushed to October 28th
- Chengdu (CTU) – pushed to October 30th
- Hong Kong (HKG) – resumes on May 28th with one daily flight (down from two)
- Seoul (ICN) – one daily flight until late October (down from two)
- Shanghai (PVG) – continues to operate via Seoul (ICN) 4x per week
- Singapore (SIN) – one daily flight from May through October (down from two)
- Washington D.C. (IAD)
- Beijing (PEK) – pushed to October 29th
Don’t necessarily expect these flight to resume in November 2022 – it is simply too soon to finalize those schedules and United has left in its 2019 schedule as a placeholder.
This schedule update went out over the weekend, before Australia announced its imminent reopening on February 21st. United has been known to be nimble in both adding and removing flights, so I would not necessarily count out the LAX-MEL or IAH-SYD flight if we suddenly see a demand in travel for Australia.
As for Asia, the glacial pace we have seen re-opening does not leave me optimistic about those flights resuming anytime sooner.
CONCLUSION
Throughout the pandemic, United has removed international flights from the schedule roughly 30-60 days in advanced. But over the weekend it has removed flights up to nine months in advance, recognizing the weak demand for transpacific travel is unlikely to rebound in 2022.
If you are booked on one of the cancelled flights, check to see what United has rebooked you on and if you are not satisfied, used the United app or call reservations to check on alternate options, including refunds or rebooking on a Star Alliance partner.
image: United Airlines
Asia’s still paranoid about something that is equivalent with a bad cold.
Australia’s starting to realize this. Double vax + 72hr PCR before arrival +entry form is not unreasonable by any standard.
You still want to peddle the BS about it being like a cold. What the hell is wrong with you
If you’re vaxxed, yes, you probably won’t end up in a hospital. This is literally why the nordic European states are opening at a breakneck pace compared to the rest of the world, they follow the science.
The hell is wrong with YOU?
Never been double vaxed for a cold before though…
It’s the flu, it’s the cold, it’s not an issue… yeah sure.
Tell that to the families of young kids ending up in hospital with issues NOTHING like a cold, tell that to vaccinated and boosted who can’t get normal hospital procedures due to the influx of unvaccinated people taking up medical care facilities.
I get you think universal vaccination is going to fix this – it can but that means UNIVERSAL – that means unvaccinated not getting on flights, that means ensuring developing countries have vaccination access – ALL to ensure we do not keep going into variant hell. The variants can curtail once we have TRUE universal vaccination. We are nowhere near there if first world is vaccinated but all those developing world vaccination spots have less than 20% vaccinated.
I want things back to normal, but the arrogance from some and the “it’s normal, move on” crap is why it will keep creeping back. If we truly cared we would ensure vaccination access outside of where you and I live was more universal. Look at Omicron, coming out of SA, you think that is the last time this will happen? You want normal travel, push your reps on why the hell we aren’t finding vaccines to developing nations *NOW*
If you would see the latest information, 90% of the cases and deaths are all among the idiots who abandoned reason and got sucked into the propaganda and took an experimental and untested shot and are trying to blame the people who wanted to wait and see if this was really needed, which it wasn’t. Just a cold because the PCR test cannot tell the difference between a cold and “Covid”, a disease that has never been isolated.
The China and Hong Kong flights make a lot of sense but I’m a bit surprised about the Australia flights being curtailed. Oz is reopening and I’d imagine that there’s a huge amount of pent up demand.
Matthew did point out that these schedule pushbacks were announced just before Australia announced their reopening. I figure UA as well as Qantas, Delta etc will start to add more flights too if Australia stays the course.
AA isn’t going to be operating LAX-SYD and I wouldn’t except Delta to do any growth in Australia especially now that they lost their partnership with Virgin Australia. Both AA and DL are short on widebody planes.
Oh no. Didn’t know the DL/VS partnership ended.
But DL can still use some of their 359s? Most of their TPAC routes are dead (which is I guess ICN and HND) and I’m not aware of any other routes where a 359 is needed aside from maybe JNB. Most TATL’s can be done with their smaller widebodies.
Yeah DL will likely continue to operate LAX-SYD but I would assume that is it. Losing the VA partnership to United hurts.
Main issue, at least for me, is that nobody wants to do a 10-day quarantine upon arrival. That’s just not going to work for anyone except maybe going to visit family.
Not sure if you’re talking about Australia or some of the Asian countries, but there is no 10 day quarantine in Australia. There is no quarantine requirement for fully vaccinated arrivals into Australia any more. There is 14 days quarantine if unvaccinated, but you need an exemption to enter the country if unvaccinated.
They just announced this is ending before the end of February.
Exactly! I have family in Korea. Quarantine is now down to 7 days from I believe 10. Still not gonna do that, blow a week of vacation time and the expense just to clear quarantine. Then there’s the mandated health app you have to download and report on your condition each day. I’d get on a plane this afternoon for Seoul if they would drop these requirements. Until then I guess we’re left Facetiming, like we have been for the last 2 years. It’s a shame that such advanced countries are still clinging to such draconian measures.
Qantas has also trimmed back their schedule to the US, SFO to be exact because the overwhelming demand that was predicted isn’t materializing. I believe Qantas is delaying the resumption of their SFO-SYD, SFO-BNE and SFO-MEL. I think it is going to take time for Australia to come back I think the airlines were hoping to see demand like what they are seeing between the US and Europe on routes between the US and Australia but it isn’t happening yet.
What about SFO-MEL? I believe that is off the schedule as well.
Also, so I guess this means all the Tokyo routes are resuming in March? Crazy that there are going to be 2 daily flights to Tokyo (one to each airport) from LAX, SFO, EWR, and daily flights from ORD, DEN, IAH, IAD. Must be supported by cargo demand? Because all the existing Tokyo flights right now are completely empty in terms of passengers.
SFO-MEL appears to be on schedule.
Good article but I wished it also showed what transpacific flights UA was operating. Thanks
I believe this is everything as of March 26. Most of the Tokyo routes listed here don’t resume until March 26. Everything else is currently operating.
Newark (EWR):
NRT
HND
Washington (IAD):
HND
Chicago (ORD):
HND
Denver (DEN):
NRT
Houston (IAH):
NRT
Los Angeles (LAX):
NRT
HND
SYD
San Francisco (SFO):
NRT
HND
SYD
PPT
ICN
TPE
Perhaps we can get some decent aircraft on the ORD and IAD to LHR routes now instead of the 763s that are currently running.
Why aren’t you a fan of the 767? And what would you prefer? I’ve never flown new Polaris on the 767 but thought is was pretty much the same?
ORD will remain solely 767, but IAD will go back to one 777 for the early evening flight, however the late evening flight will be a 767.
Perhaps a little over stated. Just a bit grumpy. On my flight after Christmas the IE went out about 20 mins into the flight. Never came back. I received 7,500 miles as compensation which struck me as a bit miserly.
The then crappy service isn’t helping either. Flying to LHR next week so maybe things have improved.
LHR crews are the best, imo.
So @Airfarer do you just dislike the 767 cause you had a broken IFE and bad crew? Is the hard Polaris seat product fine? Cause I’m going to London this summer and debating on which plane I want,
But they haven’t got any A350s 😉
Until Australia opens up properly and it’s clear it’s going to stay that way, I’m not surprised at this move at all. At the present time, internal border closures are piecemeal and at the drop of a hat, Western Australia remains closed even to Australians.
If you are going travelling in Australia, it’s likely you will want to visit at least two states, I normally do four and going when internal borders could close on what seems little more than a whim is not something I would do until the situation is more stable.
Equally, we want to be clear about entry requirements, the current government seem more keen than any in the past about cancelling visas at the border in which they include the ETA, that is a risk no one wants to take even if you are not a tennis player.
Hasn’t been any recent “drop of the hat” border closures and unlikely to be any soon since they all have Covid cases now… WA is what it is and they don’t seem to care.
As for entry requirements… I’m not sure there has been much change. Governments in Australia have been cancelling visas well before covid… That risk, albeit particularly small, will continue into the future.