United Airlines is cancelling its summer seasonal service between San Francisco and Xi’an, China.
Effective today, the flight has been removed from the schedule. In an internal memo, United blamed poor yields for the decision to abandon service–
In every market we serve, we continuously review and measure demand and performance. Corporate traffic between SFO and XIY has not increased as fast as originally forecast.After careful analysis, we determined this route is not currently meeting our expectations and is no longer sustainable.
We are contacting our customers with reservations for next summer’s service to offer them alternative travel plans.
United will re-acommodate all customers via Beijing on its metal with a connection on Air China to Xi’an.
We will continue to offer service to XIY via our Star Alliance partner, Air China, with convenient connections at PEK (Beijing). We offer daily service to PEK from our hubs in Chicago, New York/Newark, San Francisco and Washington-Dulles. Additionally, customers can connect to Beijing via Air China from Houston, Los Angeles and Honolulu.
Xi’an is home to the Army of Terra Cotta Warriors and a wonderful city I enjoyed visiting in 2011.
Unfortunately for United, its focus on secondary cities in China has proven difficult. Earlier this year, United abandoned service to Hangzhou, also blaming weak demand. United will still serve Beijing, Chengdu,and Shanghai.
CONCLUSION
I’m sorry to see this route go, as it wasn’t just one of the easiest upgrades in the system, but WAS the easiest upgrade in the system. Then again, isn’t that telling? Even without United service to Xi’an, it is still a great city in China to check out.
Can’t say I’m surprised. Xi’an is much less of a commercial and business center than Chengdu, so it doesn’t surprise that its yields for such a nonstop are lower than expected.
It was a good gamble for United. But it wasn’t meant to be. Some long and thin routes will work (Chengdu is a perfect example). Most won’t.
Agreed – Chengdu also has the benefit of being a main hub for UA’s partner, Air China, so it offers many more connecting possibilities than XIY. I wonder if United will try any more Chinese cities in the near future beyond Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong – Chongqing and Guangzhou seem most likely candidates. UA had plans (never realized) for SFO-CAN going back a decade, if I recall correctly.
Why do they even waste time and money with these markets in the first place. Did they really think this was going to be a boon ?
I suspect high-speed rail is a part of why some of these routes haven’t taken off more. Take Hangzhou – it’s less than an hour by high-speed train to Shanghai (it actually takes longer to go from Shanghai city center to Pudong airport), so for many travelers the greater choice of flights in Shanghai, where United serves multiple U.S. destinations with daily flights, vice just a few a week to SFO out of Hangzhou, will be preferable for many.
Stupid route – tourists don’t fill the paid business cabin. Better to deploy on Bangkok route or perhaps add LAX-TLV