United Airlines has updated its winter schedule for 2025-2026, and it includes a gargantuan expansion to Mainland China and Hong Kong. Will these flights actually operate, though, or what’s the intent here?
Continue reading: Is United MASSIVELY Expanding China Flights, Or What’s Going On?
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several of these are obviously predicated on an increase in the number of allowable US-China frequencies and also removal of the Russia overflight restrictions. EWR-HKG does not work on a 777W with Russia airspace restrictions.
It’s inconvenient that US Citizens need a visa to enter mainland China.
Why can’t the whole world stop with the immigration nonsense and just open up all borders. Borders are artificial constructs limiting the free movement of individuals of the same species. This has no precedence in the animal kingdom.
Are we sure these flights were newly loaded into the schedule (as in they didn't previously exist as a placeholder), or are they just placeholder flights and UA hasn't gotten around to scrubbing them? For those who haven't been paying attention, the latter has been very commonplace for China and HKG routes ever since the pandemic started, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case here.
and the obvious question is what routes get cancelled for all of this to happen.
UA is simply not receiving enough new 787s from Boeing this year in order to make this schedule happen.
unless of course, UA publishes flights that it wants to fly and then never does... that is how their China schedule operated for months after Russia invaded Ukraine...
Pretty sure these are placeholder flights. SFO-CTU can't even operate because all international flights to Chengdu go to TFU now.
@ Derek -- At a minimum, there was no inventory previously associated with these flights. A couple may have been loaded and zeroed out, but to see all these flights bookable now (even if at a high fare) is quite interesting...
Interesting that UA is using the larger plane for Beijing rather than Shanghai out of Chicago.
@Arps - if 'a precedence in the animal kingdom' is that important for you, then how about finding your place at your local animal park? Humans are classified so for a reason.
that is the way UA did it for months after Russian airspace was closed.
again, this is all highly unlikely even if Russia airspace opens - unless UA announced a whole bunch of cancellations of other routes or flights.
The People's Republic of China requiring visas for US citizens deters me from going. Getting visas take planning, something that I won't do for now. It's not like I must go there.
It's true that there are ways to go to China for up to 10 days (240 hours) but a USA to PRC round trip does not qualify.
Placeholders. I don't realistically expect any of these to operate this winter.
The war will certainly not end soon, but the US may join the Dark Side, which would likely open up the use of the Russian airspace by US airlines and possibly increase the demand for China-US travel. Plus with Trump tanking the US-EU relationship, TATL market is already falling, and the airlines on both sides of the pond will need to relocate the capacity somewhere.
There is a clear dfference - over the past couple years United was loading only a couple placeholder flights (EWR-PVG, EWR-PEK being two).
The ones listed in this article haven't even been loaded as a placeholder recently. This is United probably still doing it as a placeholder, but for some reason now sees the need to try to add a significant number of new placeholders.
A friend of mine in Procurement at AA told me the other day that AA was rethinking upgrades on their older 777 fleet and were looking for buyers. Wonder if UA is getting some used 777"s?
Based on how closely this resembles United's pre-pandemic schedule and equipment, my guess is that these are mostly placeholder flights with the possible exception of ORD-PVG (unless someone at United somehow knows about a big geopolitical change coming up soon).
For one thing, EWR would require Russian airspace reopening and airlines feeling comfortable enough to fly through it, which isn't likely anytime soon. EWR-HKG is near the limits of the 777's range even with Russian airspace.
ORD-PEK is scheduled on 777-200ERs, which United used before Covid. However, United no longer flies 777s long haul out of ORD and all former 777 routes have been replaced with 787-8s or 787-10s. The only 777s O'Hare regularly sees today are the high-density domestic configured aircraft which are rotated in and out using SFO-based crews.
The third thing is the fact that the Chengdu flight still is using CTU rather than TFU which seems like a pretty big oversight.
90% of the rest of the respondents say the same things I said - but go ahead and that I am personally picking on you.
this schedule won't happen.
but I'd love for you to tell us the flights UA will have to cancel if they did get the green light to restart flights that have been suspended due to Russia overflight restrictions.
UA has been putting the EWR-HKG route on and off repeatedly for the past year, seems like they're constantly trying to restart it and sell tickets but they have to retract it each time. Not sure whether this is just a repeat of that pattern or they actually think something different is on the horizon.
most of us are really hoping that the war will end and that it will be Europe that takes the role in making sure everyone stays in their boxes.
If you-know-who pushes it over the finished line 3 years into this thing, at least have the decency to recognize what he does.
now for the Gaza golf course proposal...
"Humans are classified so for a reason."
What is that even supposed to mean? There's no special "classification" for humans, relative to any other taxonomic designation.
Not necessarily, seeing as that flight might have a higher connecting component, and their primary Chinese partner's hub is in Beijing.
Hasn't UA been doing this for years now? I wouldn't read anything into it. As you mention, these routes need both the reopening of Russian airspace and additional frequencies to work, and we haven't heard any announcement about this.
@ImmortalSynn - is it really that you don't get it, or just saw this as a chance to tackle over? I've seen you doing the latter frequently over the time.
in other United news, their 10K mechanics voted to reject UAL's contract offer by over 99%.
“United Airlines’ executives think they can strong-arm 10,000 Teamsters technicians into accepting a terrible deal. Instead, our members just sent a clear message that this company can’t ignore. United’s radical, un-American contract proposal is dead on arrival,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien.
Just hop over to Hong Kong for the day and reenter to restart the 10 day visa if you want to do a roundtrip ticket
Right? No other animals would ever mark or defend their territory!
UA really cooking these days! honestly quite refreshing to see this degree of dynamism from a U.S.-based carrier
Why is first loading the highest fares standard practice? Generally speaking, not just in this case.
Oh, Timmy....venting and huffing that United's route network is so much more advanced than Detla. Get a grip, gurl. And stick to your lane.
and yet UA can't generate more profits despite flying more ASMs than DL - or AA - even while nearly every UA unionized employee will have contracts that are amendable by this summer.
Tens of thousands of underpaid UA employees and people like you continue to spout about UA's expansive network that can't match DL's profits despite huge labor cost advantages.
spew on
Highest fare buckets first means that if they do sell some tickets, but not enough to justify the flight, they can afford to put the passengers on alternatives by other airlines?
These are ALL going to happen. Scott Kirby is on a group Signal chat with Sean Duffy.
Apparently Timmy doesn’t have a clue on how labor relations negotiations go. Generally speaking, one doesn’t accept the initial opening offer. Because they can always do better.
Do better with your tiny typin’ fingers.
The evidence seems convincing that these are placeholders, but why make placeholders? I assume it's not just incompetence.
But you need to be traveling to a 3rd country after China, otherwise (if you’re a U.S. citizen) you need a 10 year tourist visa for $140.
Bigger planes have lower unit costs, which are arguably better suited for the lower yielding nature of PEK/PKX
With the current strict bilateral, I don't se UA launching any of these flights soon.
No it is NOT normal for companies to lowball contract offers and then for the union to have the offer the negotiating committee sent for a vote end up soundly defeated by members. United tried it with its pilots and ended up spending twice what they planned after Delta pilots accepted their union and company’s first contract proposal.
And United can’t budget on proposals that haven’t even been agreed on which simply means that United’s labor costs will increase dramatically when you factor in that multiple labor groups representing over 50k UA employees need new contracts
A whole lot of routes simply won’t be near as profitable at higher costs including to Asia on fuel guzzling 777s
United execs themselves said massive international growth is over but some still are addicted to big route announcements
Might want to check the history of
DL pilot negotiations 2019-2022 there Tiny Tim. Normally pilots don’t vote to strike as they are signing a new deal.
https://www.airwaysmag.com/legacy-posts/delta-pilots-agree-to-strike
@Tim useful insight. This could impact United’s financial performance just as all other union negotiations do, as WN and AA can attest.
Purely (very purely) speculation, but I suspect step one is deciding to resume a route with high level revenue management numbers, then later comes the nitty gritty of determining fares for each discounted fare class. Once step 1 is decided, no harm in opening the flight to full fare.
Those EWR flights are going to be a struggle without Russian airspace. Get ready for payload restrictions
Because UA knows they probably won't actually operate any of these flights, so they want to keep actual bookings as low as possible to not have to refund/reaccommodate so many pax when they cancel the flights.
you clearly are desperately trying to conflate multiple issues but did UA's mechanics reject a contract proposal or did they not?
Strike votes are what almost universally happens as part of contract negotiations.
DL pilots negotiated a contract worth twice as much post covid as UA offered its pilots.
UA's mechanics union says that UA's mechanics would trail AA and WN's mechanics and risk outsourcing of work to China.
UA's mechanics did not do a strike authorization vote. they rejected a contract proposal that they viewed as wholly inadequate compared to their peers.
@justin (below)
UA has said that its labor costs would rise. They set their investor guidance - even w/o disclosing specific numbers - based on their expectations of what they think the union will accept.
UA cannot possibly be expecting to pay every labor group in excess of what they are negotiating.
The inability of some to accept that UA's costs are going to go up, its profits relative to DL will drop, and there simply won't be the level of expansion that many here are dreaming about - even if UA actually accurately filed the schedules here correctly
It kinda looks like United wants to be first out of the gate among the US Carriers... and I'd think Air China can offer connections to other destinations within Asia
You can enter Hong Kong at least visa free. Not even a stupid ESTA-type pre-registration required.
That's not how the ten day visa free situation for Americans in mainland China works. To do that you need to fly in to an airport from one country then fly out to a *different* country. And it doesn't apply at land borders. So a roundtrip from Hong Kong (even though it counts as a different country for the purposes of this visa) won't get it for you - you would need to fly out of HK to the mainland then on to a different country, or fly from a different country then on to HK.
Does the oncoming tariff situation, possibly, begin to affect jet fuel purchases by airlines? Maybe it is defensive and speculative.
Way too generalized of an assessment. No, more seats offers lower unit costs. Having a bigger plane doesn't do you any better, if the premium-to-total-seats ratio is further skewed in favor of lower density.
Supporting Russia is not "ending the war". Ukraine and Europe won't capitulate and submit to Russia, no matter how much the toddler in charge hopes for it. But again, what's relevant to this topic is that yes, the US airline may gain overflying rights in Russia if the US switches to their side.
"The Department of Transportation (DOT) dormancy waivers for China flights end as of late October 2025, so perhaps that’s part of the motivation here."
And they just happen to load China flights for end of October? Coincidences like this (or a worldwide pandemic just happens to start where largest virology lab in the world is located) don't just happen. Of course this is the motivation, I'd say the primary or only motivation.
Meanwhile, you got Delta and American sitting in the corner eating popcorn. I wish these 2 would stop relying on their partners and expand themselves.
Over the weekend, United pulled all of this China flying from the schedule, until the end of the schedule. It's not happening
United wants China to maintain their fleet. These routes are to allow them to transport their aircraft for maintenance while selling tickets. Source:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/courage-strength-optimism/3380109/united-airlines-wants-you-on-planes-maintained-by-china/
I travel to BKK frequently, mainly from the East Coast on United. Speaking of placeholder, I have pre-booked a one-way economy ticket: IAD-LAX-BKK, with a stopover in HKG on the same flight in April 2026. The one-way fare was a bargain, less than $800 refundable. If United falls short, I am confident an alternative route will be offered at the same fare. Hope not because I welcome the new route.
United will certainly serve CTU, not TFU, if they choose to serve Chengdu. CTU is a hub for Air China and serving to CTU will ensure better onward connections in Star Alliance