Earlier today, United Airlines announced its international expansion for 2025, and it’s truly unlike anything we’ve ever seen before from a US airline. United already flies to virtually all of the popular hotspots, so rather than just adding more flights to Nice and Venice (though it did that as well), United expanded to places like Kaohsiung, Nuuk, Ulaanbaatar, and more.
Along those lines, I saw something on Twitter/X that I can’t help but share.
In this post:
Fly a United 737 from Ponta Delgada to Ulaanbaatar
@iTripReport shared a graphic that really sums up how far United’s network has come over time. Specifically, you can now fly a United Boeing 737 all the way from Ponta Delgada, Portugal, to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. That’s 12 segments moving continuously in the same direction, covering a distance of 15,422 miles.
Admittedly from a passenger experience standpoint, this is probably also the least comfortable routing you could do on a US airline. But to me, it really sums up how United’s global network has become such a point of differentiation.
To be clear, I’m not saying United’s global network is amazing because you can fly a 737 across the Pacific, but rather this is more a metaphor for United’s overall network. We can also compare the general route maps across the Pacific of United to American and Delta, and the difference would be equally apparent. United is quickly becoming the Turkish Airlines of the United States in terms of its network.
Before someone else comes out and says it, I recognize that airlines are for-profit businesses that report to shareholders, and that’s fine and all. But as an airline passenger, I look at where an airline can take me, and not its stock price. For that matter, United’s financial performance is impressive, as the airline increasingly enters Delta’s league, and leaves American in the dust.
I think United’s investment in its network will pay off financially, as the airline is playing the long game. It’s not just about the international destinations served, but about how it makes United an airline people want be loyal to, an airline people want to collect miles with, etc.
Patrick Quayle is living the avgeek dream
Patrick Quayle, United’s SVP of Global Network Planning and Alliances, is an absolute visionary, as he’s the guy who has been behind United’s global growth. I’m equal parts impressed by him and jealous of what he gets to do every day.
If you’re like me, and you were an aviation geek growing up, you probably liked taking out a map and drawing lines, and creating your own fake airline route network. Quayle is quite literally living that dream.
I love Quayle’s adventurous spirit with expansion. For example, several months back we learned how United was reducing some operations in Guam, and planned to shift some 737s to Tokyo Narita instead, which is what makes some of these routes possible. As Quayle told The Airline Observer:
“Our job is solving problems and being creative, and not complaining. We have these assets that are out in the western Pacific, so let’s use it to try something different.”
That’s such an awesome attitude. It’s not “oh, let’s go with whatever the safest option is,” but instead it’s “let’s try something different.” United CEO Scott Kirby also deserves credit here, as clearly he’s onboard with this strategy. Quayle could be as creative as he’d like, but if he didn’t have the support of the CEO, this strategy would go nowhere.
Honestly, the contrast between American and United has never been clearer. American has spent the past couple of years trying to kill business travel and focus almost exclusively on domestic expansion. Meanwhile United is investing in its product and building an unrivaled network.
Bottom line
United has been steadily expanding its international network in recent years, but today’s expansion announcement showed a level of creativity we’ve never seen before from a US airline. It’s almost like some avgeek kid is building an airline route network, except, you know, he’s actually running network planning at one of the world’s biggest airlines, and the strategy is working.
Here’s to hoping that these routes succeed, and that this isn’t the end of United’s creative expansion…
Anyone else love to see the direction that United’s network is headed?
It should now be possible to somehow fly around the world only on 737s. United covers half of the journey already. For the other half, my best guess would be FlyDubai as they fly e.g. from India and some airports in Thailand and Malaysia, via DXB to Europe and then with some European leisure carrier to PDL. Any ideas how to complete the circle in Asia, between a UA 737 destination and a place where FlyDubai goes?
:) :) :)
I'm a U MM..... Built my miles between jp and bkk mostly. Until it brings back bkk.... United is just a little podunk carrier..... No excuse not to serve bkk. None.
WE DEMAND A TRIP REPORT ON THIS ROUTING
Jeb brooks retweeted the same graph and joked that he won't rule out making that trip report. Maybe you guys can team up and a trip review together!
Does Nuuk have enough accommodation for a new UA flight? I certainly didn’t see Nuuk coming. Though Air Greenlands weekly flight to Iqaluit has apparently been quite popular but it’s a dash 8
Gag. I hate sitting on a 737 from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. That route sounds hideous.
Ben, you realise posting this is as good as saying you are going to fly this route. ;-)
Ok, sign me up, I really want to give this a try. Ponta Delgada (or rather Madeira, as announced route, is even further form the US and on a 737-MAX8)
I missed out on the opportunity to fly Norwegian from Svalbard to Ushuaia (the world's northernmost and southernmost commercial airports with scheduled traffic at the time, all connected by one airline), but to fly the most inconvenient and irrational route from Europe to Mongolia sounds like a great challenge.
It seems that United is reminiscing about some of its roots from Pan Am days.
United has long been much more focused on status and flash than either AA or DL which is what Pan Am did including their short-lived RTW flights.
UA is much more profitable than Pan Am was but I am certain that some of their vanity routes do not make as much money as some of their "boring" trunk routes such as to FRA and MUC
I respect the view that some fringe destinations risk loss, but I give credit to the network planners for use of frequency and seasonality timings which largely eliminate the risk. UA has pulled very few start ups, but when they did it was very swift (Bergen). They don’t suffer long losses. Starting with 3-4x/week service in correctly suited aircraft and growing from there appears to be the secret sauce for their unparalleled international network.
Ben,
Didn't you, long ago, criticize LH (I think it was, not sure) for flying an A320 from Europe to India (was it Pune? again not sure).
Mongolia to Azores all in 737s seems to me to be the flights made in Hell, but in the old days, what a mileage run !!
The record for flights in Hell probably was the Pacific milkman's run across all the islands, Continental then United, including biolabs, but...
Ben,
Didn't you, long ago, criticize LH (I think it was, not sure) for flying an A320 from Europe to India (was it Pune? again not sure).
Mongolia to Azores all in 737s seems to me to be the flights made in Hell, but in the old days, what a mileage run !!
The record for flights in Hell probably was the Pacific milkman's run across all the islands, Continental then United, including biolabs, but nobody ever took it full length. And at least the US contained the germs on an island, not smack in the middle of a giant country.
To be fair, at least United 737s have "real" business class seats, and some even has IFE screens, both of which are missing on Lufthansa A320s.
Lufty had a route from Frankfurt to Pune in India on a 737-700 business jet for a while. To be more precise: operated by a PrivatAir Boeing 737-700BBJ. I think that service disappeared in 2016 or 2017 or so.
A colleague of mine got to fly that one and I was envious in a way, as at the time long haul narrow bodies were still an exception (with the exception of the 757), and this one had flat beds in business.
As an avgeek, have you ever wanted to do the Island Hopper? It's been on my bucket list.
I did it in 2017, Westbound with 4 nights in Majuro with a friend who grew up there. He was visiting to renew his RMI passport. It was a fascinating experience and I highly recommend it. I’d even do it again, but spend a few days in either PNI or TKK for the scuba diving.
Absolutely worth the trek for the avgeek experience, even if you can’t stop somewhere.
I've done it once straight through from HNL to GUM. At Guam, went off the Island Hopper onto the Manilla Hopper, flying GUM-ROR-MNL. I had planned to take the entire journey again next year but United really jacked up the Mileage Plus rates to fly on it.
As a former Guam-based United pilot, I absolutely loved flying the Island Hopper. I was doing 2-3 round trips. The airports and weather are challenging, but over the course of the long duty day, you develop a bond with the other crew members and more than that, the Hopper is a cultural experience. You see the flow of life on those islands. Young military recruits of to boot camp, leaving the islands for the first...
As a former Guam-based United pilot, I absolutely loved flying the Island Hopper. I was doing 2-3 round trips. The airports and weather are challenging, but over the course of the long duty day, you develop a bond with the other crew members and more than that, the Hopper is a cultural experience. You see the flow of life on those islands. Young military recruits of to boot camp, leaving the islands for the first time, taking those in need of medical care to Hawaii and bringing home the remains of the departed back home. Something that will always stick with me about the Hopper is the smell of flowers as passengers come on adorned in leis.
United cannot be the Turkish Airlines of the United States until they give Mayor Adams a free upgrade.
One ?
Good one!
Really exciting. And one of the reasons I can't help but fly United these days. Will prob go from basically 0 flights with them to 1k this year. Had to do a mileagerun to keep my BA GGL. Might just let it go. AA domestic/international is such a let down.
I can only imagine how much money Nuuk is going to lose. I'd be absolutely shocked if it makes it to a second year.
@ Bob Dole -- Anything is possible, but we're talking about a twice weekly flight that's shorter than a transcon. The operating costs aren't that high, and the airline can certainly command MUCH higher fares than it could on a comparable domestic flight. The question is what the load factor will be like, given the limited hotel inventory.
Plus the subsidies are probably out of this world as the Greenland government has been wanting a North American route for quite a while
I think Greenland is going to be a flop. I can't imagine Nuuk has much to do and see for more than 1 or 2 days. And there's a huge, huge shortage of hotels. I also can't imagine there are any large chain hotels.
I see a lot of people questioning or expressing surprise at Palau. This is a popular destination for Japanese tourists. Delta used to serve it, like Guam, from NRT. And, Palau...
I think Greenland is going to be a flop. I can't imagine Nuuk has much to do and see for more than 1 or 2 days. And there's a huge, huge shortage of hotels. I also can't imagine there are any large chain hotels.
I see a lot of people questioning or expressing surprise at Palau. This is a popular destination for Japanese tourists. Delta used to serve it, like Guam, from NRT. And, Palau is essentially an American protectorate. Independent but closely linked to the US for matters of foreign policy and defense. I imagine United will have cargo contracts, including a USPS contract as the USPS is the post office for Palau.
"I can't imagine Nuuk has much to do... I also can't imagine"
I love that you freely offer opinions based your guesses when you can look up just anything on Google
I guess Greenland generally attracts high income travellers although I checked some hotels now and they are reasonably priced. I used to know someone who lived there. Personally I’d would love to visit. Flown over it so many times.
@ FNT Delta Diamond -- People don't generally go to Greenland for a day. It's not a place you go to see the cities, but rather to explore the nature, so people usually plan tours around.
That's going to change with United or another major airline. People will say, "Hey, they're flying twice a week to Greenland. Let's cash in miles and go there for 2 or 3 days to check off the bucket list."
That's my plan!
That's what I'm going to do. What's wrong with it?
Viking operates cruises out of Nuuk. Perhaps other cruise lines do too.
Nuuk is rather just a starting point for a trip around Greenland. No, the village doesn't have much to see and do, but you're not on a city trip there. They have an amazing hospital though, in case you get torn apart by a polar bear or so. Because that was the big thing this year: polar bears suddenly appearing near Nuuk, for the first time in ages.
But please feel free to just base your opinions on your own prejudice instead. :)
Pretty amazing expansion even if some are seasonal for obvious reasons.
I'd be interested in an analysis on the history of the NRT hub and viability. Maybe Cranky Flier will do one given how topical it is now.
I saw NWA/Delta's old route map and it was truly impressive, Delta's TPAC is a shell of what it used to be. It's interesting how UA is reviving this strategy, and I must say the destination choice is quite intriguing. KHH and UBN are a pretty good selection with strong demand.
Remember that things have changed again and what's old is new again - because Russian airspace is closed. That means that nonstops to deeper Asia from North America are longer now and require greater range than they did a few years ago. As UA still has remnants of a hub at NRT, they figured that they could leverage this unique strength to grow in Asian markets that no other US airline can possibly muster -...
Remember that things have changed again and what's old is new again - because Russian airspace is closed. That means that nonstops to deeper Asia from North America are longer now and require greater range than they did a few years ago. As UA still has remnants of a hub at NRT, they figured that they could leverage this unique strength to grow in Asian markets that no other US airline can possibly muster - aside from via codeshare.
And DL had already sacrificed some convenience when they blew out their former (NWA) hub at NRT in favor of ICN and using a lot of Korean Air metal for onward connections. That was competitive until the Russians invaded Ukraine, resulting in sanctions and closed airspace. Now, NRT is the quickest Asian hub - by far - as even ICN requires avoidance of Russian far east airspace that adds time to any flight from the USA (especially from the East Coast).
UA is brilliant in their strategy for next summer.
Here's a map I found:
https://northwestairlineshistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/NW-routemap-2004-04-magazine.pdf
Those were the days for Memphis. Thanks for the map.
AA at the same time is going "hey look how many flights we have out of ELP!"
AA's domestic network is arguably impressive...as long as you're flying to PHX, DFW, CLT or PHL.