United Airlines Cancels All Hong Kong Flights

That's too bad. Hopefully the suspensions will not last a long time.
I wonder what happens to FAs based in HK during this time?

“On January 31, 2020, United Airlines announced that they’re suspending all flights to mainland China, including to Beijing, Chengdu, and San Francisco.”

Should be Shanghai instead of San Francisco I presume?

Anyway, it’s interesting to think about what airlines will do with the planes that would normally operate China/Hong Kong flights considering that some airlines use their best products on these routes.

"On January 31, 2020, United Airlines announced that they’re suspending all flights to mainland China, including to Beijing, Chengdu, and San Francisco."

In what province is this San Francisco?

Any guesses what they'll do with the planes?

@ ah -- I know many airlines are doing heavy maintenance on planes earlier than expected because of this. However, given that it's still winter, I can't imagine there are many places these planes can profitably be deployed last minute.

Delta was ahead of the curve because they had no flights to HKG to cut LOL

@ NG -- Hah, whoops, meant Shanghai. Fixed!

Lucky, it has been a week since you wrote your last installment of your Starlux trip report!

Look like United has replaced flights to Tel Aviv from Newark with the 777-300ER, great capacity boost, on one of their most lucrative routes in the system!

Hope this resolved soon. I am booked to fly through HK this summer.

I am guessing one of the factors in these cancellations is labor relations. They would hate to have a union issue over a single remaining flight.

Interestingly Singapore has a higher infection rate than Hong Kong, yet no airline has stopped flying there.

HKG just closed the land borders with the mainland as well.
Cathay workers have been asked to take three weeks off with no pay.

Correction: all crossers from the mainland (regardless of nationality) will be screened and then asked to do a mandatory 14-day self-quarantine if asymptomatic. They are also closing the immigration offices at Kai Tak and Ocean Terminal.
As for how they will enforced the quarantine, that remains to be seen...

I am wondering if United is allowing passengers to reroute from Singapore on their SIN-SFO flight. I have a March 3rd flight on HKG-SFO confirmed and United will not allow me to re-route as my flight departs after Feb 20th. They only offered to refund the return portion. Since it is a discount economy ticket, that means no refund at all.

Has anyone with a current HKG-SFO ticket due to fly BEFORE Feb 20th been able to re-route without fare being re-priced?

@lucky I'm booked to fly SQ2 HKG-SFO on Feb 25th... any thoughts on whether Singapore Airlines will look to cut this flight?

No comments from @Sean lately.. I feel like he'd be a great resource to tell us what's happening to all of these wide-bodies (not just on UA, but also DL, AA) that are either grounded or being reutilized on other routes.

Any ideas on this Ben?

This is very refreshing. While I do want to go to Japan and Korea as a tourist in the next few years, I find it refreshing the western world can shut off travel to and from China with no ill effects. We don’t need China for anything and it is unfortunate we allowed ourselves to be sold to China and Mexicans (whether they are in the U.S. or south of the border). I know this won’t happen but I wish people realize how important it is to have other trading partners and to pay a little more to buy quality products from Australia, Europe, Argentina and Brazil. If they don’t exist we should start making them.

@John Waters - everyone will feel the effects of Chinas isolation in a few months time . Many factories are shut so all the goods made in those factories in China will dry up. Already , some cars built in Germany cannot be completed due to a shortage of a certain part from China.
So stores in UK, USA, Europe and elsewhere will see a shortage of certain products when stocks run out .

Hi Ben,

What do you think UA will cut Newark Hong Kong permanently? Because everybody (say Boston, Washington DC) able to transit Tokyo or San Francisco, Newark not a must, this route benefit New Yorkers only

Another route, Singapore Airline, SFO HKG, why Singapore Airline doesn't flight SFO SIN directly?

Nowadays, thanks pro-China Chinese media, Hongkongers become more and more dislike USA (I can say even hate USA), they prefer visit or study at Australia, Canada or United Kingdom, but not USA! As Hongkongers enjoy visa free, Commonwealth countries and no gun when they visit or study at Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, so the demand to flight USA is dropping