STT757 wrote:

I think United needs to start looking at long term replacements for the pre-Covid China flights.

EWR-ICN, EWR-TPE, ORD-ICN, SFO-MNL etc..

EWR might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to KIX once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with both Panasonic and Sharp having their global headquarters in Osaka Prefecture and their North American headquarters in New Jersey.

UA also has NH's FF base in the Keihanshin (Kyoto/Osaka/Kobe) region of Japan in addition to its FF base in the Northeastern U.S. to support a possible EWR-KIX add on UA.

There would also be some connecting opportunities to some other U.S. East Coast destinations from KIX through EWR if UA EWR-KIX nonstop service is added.

NGO might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to ORD once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with the connections that UA would be able to offer through ORD to destinations such as CRW, CVG, CMH, DTW, GSO, HSV, LEX, MEM, BNA, and EWR.

UA would also likely be able to capture some of the connecting traffic to the Eastern U.S. from NGO that DL wouldn't be capturing on its NGO-DTW nonstop flights if it adds NGO-ORD nonstop service with the significant FF base that UA's partner NH has in Greater Nagoya.

There is also Nagoya-based Brother's North American headquarters in New Jersey in addition to the Japanese auto industry presence in the Eastern U.S. to support a possible UA NGO-ORD add.

RyanairGuru wrote:

panam330 wrote:

intotheair wrote:

One thing I would add about the 747 discussion is that it’s important to remember that in the final few years, the entire fleet was concentrated to be based at SFO, mostly because the dispatch reliability was so poor. The entirety of the 747 fleet wasn’t based at SFO because of unique capacity or range conditions out of there.

When UA decided to base all the 747s at SFO, some routes that didn’t usually see the 747 much before, such as SFO-LHR/FRA, started to see them, while routes out of ORD were downgauged usually to the 772. Prior to that, the 747s were roughly evenly split between SFO and ORD, plus a handful of routes out of LAX (Australia in particular) and IAD (PEK springs to mind.) Also, SFO-HND never saw the 747.

Not quite on a few of your points. 747s operated ORD-NRT/PVG into 2017, in fact. And SFO-LHR/FRA had 747s quite consistently, with the latter having it for 13 straight years, right up until its retirement. The entire domestic and international schedules for the 747’s life at UA/CO/PE can be found at the (very interesting) link below.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/275587/united-airlines-boeing-747-network-1970-2017/

From memory, ORD-NRT/PVG, along with all other ORD 747 routes, were downgauged to 777s in 2014 (?), and the 747s were indeed only used from SFO. A couple of years later those two routes were reinstated with the 747 for the last 18 months or so, as their dispatch reliability improved somewhat with more intensive maintenance.

I’m hesitant to say your link is wrong, but it doesn’t reflect my recollection of the 747’s final years. I’m happy to concede though that could be my memory letting me down!w

Yeah, that's about how I remembered it. There was definitely a pretty decisive moment (~2010, I want to say) when all the 747s were based ex-SFO, but there were maybe a handful of routes from ORD or LAX. Now that I think of it, I think you're right that the reliability eventually improved to where they were able to have more out of ORD in the final 2-3 years. There was certainly a lot of slack in the fleet by the end. I'd venture far enough to say that 22 77Ws are doing far, far more flying than 22 747s were in the final years.

Paint update
757
N41135 is back in service from AMA paint with Evo blue livery F2751/12
738
N37287 has entered AMA paint for Evo blue livery F2736/12

United amended its CPA with Mesa allowing for future withdrawal of a certain number of E175s with the required notice period.

Separately Mesa reached an agreement to sell 18 CRJ700 frames on lease to GoJet Airlines

https://investor.mesa-air.com/node/12121/html

jplatts wrote:

STT757 wrote:

I think United needs to start looking at long term replacements for the pre-Covid China flights.

EWR-ICN, EWR-TPE, ORD-ICN, SFO-MNL etc..

EWR might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to KIX once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with both Panasonic and Sharp having their global headquarters in Osaka Prefecture and their North American headquarters in New Jersey.

UA also has NH's FF base in the Keihanshin (Kyoto/Osaka/Kobe) region of Japan in addition to its FF base in the Northeastern U.S. to support a possible EWR-KIX add on UA.

There would also be some connecting opportunities to some other U.S. East Coast destinations from KIX through EWR if UA EWR-KIX nonstop service is added.

NGO might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to ORD once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with the connections that UA would be able to offer through ORD to destinations such as CRW, CVG, CMH, DTW, GSO, HSV, LEX, MEM, BNA, and EWR.

UA would also likely be able to capture some of the connecting traffic to the Eastern U.S. from NGO that DL wouldn't be capturing on its NGO-DTW nonstop flights if it adds NGO-ORD nonstop service with the significant FF base that UA's partner NH has in Greater Nagoya.

There is also Nagoya-based Brother's North American headquarters in New Jersey in addition to the Japanese auto industry presence in the Eastern U.S. to support a possible UA NGO-ORD add.

It's been discussed here at length, and I am pretty sure you have brought the topic up before, but US carriers really struggle in Japan outside of TYO. I highly doubt you will ever see NGO-Mainland US service on any US carrier in the foreseeable future. Osaka, which is a far more larger and more economically powerful city, barely maintains service to the Mainland US. The Japanese market is inherently Tokyo-centric, and the POS skews towards ANA/JAL.

US carriers have essentially tried a myriad of USA-KIX/NGO routes from a variety of US gateways, and nothing seems to stick outside of UA's SFO-KIX service and DL's DTW-NGO service, which only exists because of automotive contracts on the route.

AA tried ORD-NGO and DFW-KIX. NW ran DTW-KIX and discontinued the route in 2008 IIRC. DL tried SEA-KIX. UA attempted SFO-NGO at some point in the early/mid 2000s, and also ran a 3x/weekly ORD-KIX service until 2007 or so. I think either UA or NW (or both) also did LAX-KIX sometime in the 1990s.

In a way, the Japanese market is kind of like the French market. Both countries are very capital-centric and have good high-speed rail systems that hit all of the major airports. The reason NYC-NCE exists is because Nice and the greater Côte d'Azur region is a tourist mecca in the summer.

USAirALB wrote:

jplatts wrote:

STT757 wrote:

I think United needs to start looking at long term replacements for the pre-Covid China flights.

EWR-ICN, EWR-TPE, ORD-ICN, SFO-MNL etc..

EWR might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to KIX once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with both Panasonic and Sharp having their global headquarters in Osaka Prefecture and their North American headquarters in New Jersey.

UA also has NH's FF base in the Keihanshin (Kyoto/Osaka/Kobe) region of Japan in addition to its FF base in the Northeastern U.S. to support a possible EWR-KIX add on UA.

There would also be some connecting opportunities to some other U.S. East Coast destinations from KIX through EWR if UA EWR-KIX nonstop service is added.

NGO might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to ORD once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with the connections that UA would be able to offer through ORD to destinations such as CRW, CVG, CMH, DTW, GSO, HSV, LEX, MEM, BNA, and EWR.

UA would also likely be able to capture some of the connecting traffic to the Eastern U.S. from NGO that DL wouldn't be capturing on its NGO-DTW nonstop flights if it adds NGO-ORD nonstop service with the significant FF base that UA's partner NH has in Greater Nagoya.

There is also Nagoya-based Brother's North American headquarters in New Jersey in addition to the Japanese auto industry presence in the Eastern U.S. to support a possible UA NGO-ORD add.

It's been discussed here at length, and I am pretty sure you have brought the topic up before, but US carriers really struggle in Japan outside of TYO. I highly doubt you will ever see NGO-Mainland US service on any US carrier in the foreseeable future. Osaka, which is a far more larger and more economically powerful city, barely maintains service to the Mainland US. The Japanese market is inherently Tokyo-centric, and the POS skews towards ANA/JAL.

US carriers have essentially tried a myriad of USA-KIX/NGO routes from a variety of US gateways, and nothing seems to stick outside of UA's SFO-KIX service and DL's DTW-NGO service, which only exists because of automotive contracts on the route.

AA tried ORD-NGO and DFW-KIX. NW ran DTW-KIX and discontinued the route in 2008 IIRC. DL tried SEA-KIX. UA attempted SFO-NGO at some point in the early/mid 2000s, and also ran a 3x/weekly ORD-KIX service until 2007 or so. I think either UA or NW (or both) also did LAX-KIX sometime in the 1990s.

In a way, the Japanese market is kind of like the French market. Both countries are very capital-centric and have good high-speed rail systems that hit all of the major airports. The reason NYC-NCE exists is because Nice and the greater Côte d'Azur region is a tourist mecca in the summer.

Continental operated Honolulu-Nagoya, with a 764.

https://www.traveldailynews.asia/index.php/continental-airlines-announces-plans-for-new-daily-nonstop

STT757 wrote:

USAirALB wrote:

jplatts wrote:

EWR might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to KIX once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with both Panasonic and Sharp having their global headquarters in Osaka Prefecture and their North American headquarters in New Jersey.

UA also has NH's FF base in the Keihanshin (Kyoto/Osaka/Kobe) region of Japan in addition to its FF base in the Northeastern U.S. to support a possible EWR-KIX add on UA.

There would also be some connecting opportunities to some other U.S. East Coast destinations from KIX through EWR if UA EWR-KIX nonstop service is added.

NGO might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to ORD once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with the connections that UA would be able to offer through ORD to destinations such as CRW, CVG, CMH, DTW, GSO, HSV, LEX, MEM, BNA, and EWR.

UA would also likely be able to capture some of the connecting traffic to the Eastern U.S. from NGO that DL wouldn't be capturing on its NGO-DTW nonstop flights if it adds NGO-ORD nonstop service with the significant FF base that UA's partner NH has in Greater Nagoya.

There is also Nagoya-based Brother's North American headquarters in New Jersey in addition to the Japanese auto industry presence in the Eastern U.S. to support a possible UA NGO-ORD add.

It's been discussed here at length, and I am pretty sure you have brought the topic up before, but US carriers really struggle in Japan outside of TYO. I highly doubt you will ever see NGO-Mainland US service on any US carrier in the foreseeable future. Osaka, which is a far more larger and more economically powerful city, barely maintains service to the Mainland US. The Japanese market is inherently Tokyo-centric, and the POS skews towards ANA/JAL.

US carriers have essentially tried a myriad of USA-KIX/NGO routes from a variety of US gateways, and nothing seems to stick outside of UA's SFO-KIX service and DL's DTW-NGO service, which only exists because of automotive contracts on the route.

AA tried ORD-NGO and DFW-KIX. NW ran DTW-KIX and discontinued the route in 2008 IIRC. DL tried SEA-KIX. UA attempted SFO-NGO at some point in the early/mid 2000s, and also ran a 3x/weekly ORD-KIX service until 2007 or so. I think either UA or NW (or both) also did LAX-KIX sometime in the 1990s.

In a way, the Japanese market is kind of like the French market. Both countries are very capital-centric and have good high-speed rail systems that hit all of the major airports. The reason NYC-NCE exists is because Nice and the greater Côte d'Azur region is a tourist mecca in the summer.

Continental operated Honolulu-Nagoya, with a 764.

https://www.traveldailynews.asia/index.php/continental-airlines-announces-plans-for-new-daily-nonstop

Should probably exclude HNL-Japan flights as DL also operated to numerous (and recently) like NGO, KIX, and FUK. Hawaiian continues to.

With the 787 deliveries resuming United is set to take 8 new 787s, combine that with the Pratt 777s they still have to reactivate and the China routes still be suspended United is going to have a lot more heavy lift going into Spring / Summer 2023 than they did going into this Summer. I'm guessing we're going to be hearing about some new routes.

STT757 wrote:

With the 787 deliveries resuming United is set to take 8 new 787s, combine that with the Pratt 777s they still have to reactivate and the China routes still be suspended United is going to have a lot more heavy lift going into Spring / Summer 2023 than they did going into this Summer. I'm guessing we're going to be hearing about some new routes.

I wouldn't be so sure its a lot, domestic is roaring so I think a lot will stay domestic - but it is a lot of new capacity and MAXes are coming in strong, too.

USAirALB wrote:

jplatts wrote:

STT757 wrote:

I think United needs to start looking at long term replacements for the pre-Covid China flights.

EWR-ICN, EWR-TPE, ORD-ICN, SFO-MNL etc..

EWR might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to KIX once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with both Panasonic and Sharp having their global headquarters in Osaka Prefecture and their North American headquarters in New Jersey.

UA also has NH's FF base in the Keihanshin (Kyoto/Osaka/Kobe) region of Japan in addition to its FF base in the Northeastern U.S. to support a possible EWR-KIX add on UA.

There would also be some connecting opportunities to some other U.S. East Coast destinations from KIX through EWR if UA EWR-KIX nonstop service is added.

NGO might possibly be able to support UA nonstop service to ORD once U.S. to Japan demand recovers with the connections that UA would be able to offer through ORD to destinations such as CRW, CVG, CMH, DTW, GSO, HSV, LEX, MEM, BNA, and EWR.

UA would also likely be able to capture some of the connecting traffic to the Eastern U.S. from NGO that DL wouldn't be capturing on its NGO-DTW nonstop flights if it adds NGO-ORD nonstop service with the significant FF base that UA's partner NH has in Greater Nagoya.

There is also Nagoya-based Brother's North American headquarters in New Jersey in addition to the Japanese auto industry presence in the Eastern U.S. to support a possible UA NGO-ORD add.

It's been discussed here at length, and I am pretty sure you have brought the topic up before, but US carriers really struggle in Japan outside of TYO. I highly doubt you will ever see NGO-Mainland US service on any US carrier in the foreseeable future. Osaka, which is a far more larger and more economically powerful city, barely maintains service to the Mainland US. The Japanese market is inherently Tokyo-centric, and the POS skews towards ANA/JAL.

US carriers have essentially tried a myriad of USA-KIX/NGO routes from a variety of US gateways, and nothing seems to stick outside of UA's SFO-KIX service and DL's DTW-NGO service, which only exists because of automotive contracts on the route.

AA tried ORD-NGO and DFW-KIX. NW ran DTW-KIX and discontinued the route in 2008 IIRC. DL tried SEA-KIX. UA attempted SFO-NGO at some point in the early/mid 2000s, and also ran a 3x/weekly ORD-KIX service until 2007 or so. I think either UA or NW (or both) also did LAX-KIX sometime in the 1990s.

In a way, the Japanese market is kind of like the French market. Both countries are very capital-centric and have good high-speed rail systems that hit all of the major airports. The reason NYC-NCE exists is because Nice and the greater Côte d'Azur region is a tourist mecca in the summer.

DL’s PDX-NGO and FUK and NW’s MSP-KIX are three more non-Tokyo flights that were attempted but didn’t work out for US carriers. There are probably a few more I’m forgetting.

Jeremy

STT757 wrote:

With the 787 deliveries resuming United is set to take 8 new 787s, combine that with the Pratt 777s they still have to reactivate and the China routes still be suspended United is going to have a lot more heavy lift going into Spring / Summer 2023 than they did going into this Summer. I'm guessing we're going to be hearing about some new routes.

It’ll definitely be interesting to see what UA does. Compared to 2019 they’ll have a lot more widebodies operating but a far less robust international demand environment. Either there’s going to be a ton more flights to Europe and Latin America or there’s going to be a lot of excess airplanes. Asia is certainly not going to reach 2019 demand levels for years to come.

Jeremy

dcajet wrote:

EWR - LIM returns on 30OCT, 1x d, 752

UA886 EWR 14:30 LIM 21:35 D 752
UA887 LIM 22:55 EWR 07:55+1 D 752

EWR-LIM will run 4x weekly in November and increase to daily in December and January before reverting back to 4x weekly in February and March.

So it looks like UA added back LAX-SAN starting in January, if it holds.

Air Wisconsin will exit its partnership with United Airlines by March of 2023 and will begin flying for AA.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/air-wisco ... -airlines/

USAirALB wrote:

I highly doubt you will ever see NGO-Mainland US service on any US carrier in the foreseeable future.

One can buy DTW-NGO today, a DL A350. Frequency isn't what it used to be. Call it the Toyota shuttle.

intotheair wrote:

RyanairGuru wrote:

panam330 wrote:

Not quite on a few of your points. 747s operated ORD-NRT/PVG into 2017, in fact. And SFO-LHR/FRA had 747s quite consistently, with the latter having it for 13 straight years, right up until its retirement. The entire domestic and international schedules for the 747’s life at UA/CO/PE can be found at the (very interesting) link below.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/275587/united-airlines-boeing-747-network-1970-2017/

From memory, ORD-NRT/PVG, along with all other ORD 747 routes, were downgauged to 777s in 2014 (?), and the 747s were indeed only used from SFO. A couple of years later those two routes were reinstated with the 747 for the last 18 months or so, as their dispatch reliability improved somewhat with more intensive maintenance.

I’m hesitant to say your link is wrong, but it doesn’t reflect my recollection of the 747’s final years. I’m happy to concede though that could be my memory letting me down!w

Yeah, that's about how I remembered it. There was definitely a pretty decisive moment (~2010, I want to say) when all the 747s were based ex-SFO, but there were maybe a handful of routes from ORD or LAX. Now that I think of it, I think you're right that the reliability eventually improved to where they were able to have more out of ORD in the final 2-3 years. There was certainly a lot of slack in the fleet by the end. I'd venture far enough to say that 22 77Ws are doing far, far more flying than 22 747s were in the final years.

After the Merger, United got the "Bright" idea to base 747-400's at IAH. they found out soon enough that IAH didn't have the experience nor the knowhow to maintain the 747-422 because they'd not sallowed any of the United mechanics to even Bid IAH. (mainly becaue of their senority) So IAH didn't kniw the airplane and seemingly didn't WANT to know the airplane. Threey pitched a fit about having the Airbus airplanes there as well but WHQ evidently told them to get over it. Even in Maintenance control the S/CO guys stayed well away from the 747. While the S/UA guys had to work all the fleets. Now that the 747's are gone? I'm sure the load is much more equitable as the 787 and 777's are common to both sides of the aisle. the A320 and A319's are still pretty segregated to the UA side though there is no CO side anymore.

MIflyer12 wrote:

USAirALB wrote:

I highly doubt you will ever see NGO-Mainland US service on any US carrier in the foreseeable future.

One can buy DTW-NGO today, a DL A350. Frequency isn't what it used to be. Call it the Toyota shuttle.

Outside of Tokyo, other smaller markets don't have much service to mainland US. KIX only has SFO and LAX, while NGO has DTW only. Even UA served SFO-NGO at one point but ended the route soon after.

What frequency is DTW-NGO going to be at in the future? Didn't know it was a Toyota shuttle. Always found it strange how DL operated DTW to NGO, not even UA could make SFO-NGO work.

strfyr51 wrote:

After the Merger, United got the "Bright" idea to base 747-400's at IAH. they found out soon enough that IAH didn't have the experience nor the knowhow to maintain the 747-422 because they'd not sallowed any of the United mechanics to even Bid IAH. (mainly becaue of their senority) So IAH didn't kniw the airplane and seemingly didn't WANT to know the airplane. Threey pitched a fit about having the Airbus airplanes there as well but WHQ evidently told them to get over it. Even in Maintenance control the S/CO guys stayed well away from the 747. While the S/UA guys had to work all the fleets. Now that the 747's are gone? I'm sure the load is much more equitable as the 787 and 777's are common to both sides of the aisle. the A320 and A319's are still pretty segregated to the UA side though there is no CO side anymore.

Where did the 747s fly to from IAH? I don't have any memory of them, but I wasn't based there after early 2012.

I do recall when the Smisek regime sent Airbus' to IAH without any parts and only 3 sCO mechanics were trained on them. This was according to two sCO line mechanics.

That same first summer of cross-fleeting, Smisek, et al, sent 737s to DEN and ORD but didn't bother to send parts until very late July.

Penny wise and pound foolish seemed to rule the day then.

Velocirapture wrote:

strfyr51 wrote:

After the Merger, United got the "Bright" idea to base 747-400's at IAH. they found out soon enough that IAH didn't have the experience nor the knowhow to maintain the 747-422 because they'd not sallowed any of the United mechanics to even Bid IAH. (mainly becaue of their senority) So IAH didn't kniw the airplane and seemingly didn't WANT to know the airplane. Threey pitched a fit about having the Airbus airplanes there as well but WHQ evidently told them to get over it. Even in Maintenance control the S/CO guys stayed well away from the 747. While the S/UA guys had to work all the fleets. Now that the 747's are gone? I'm sure the load is much more equitable as the 787 and 777's are common to both sides of the aisle. the A320 and A319's are still pretty segregated to the UA side though there is no CO side anymore.

Where did the 747s fly to from IAH? I don't have any memory of them, but I wasn't based there after early 2012.

I do recall when the Smisek regime sent Airbus' to IAH without any parts and only 3 sCO mechanics were trained on them. This was according to two sCO line mechanics.

That same first summer of cross-fleeting, Smisek, et al, sent 737s to DEN and ORD but didn't bother to send parts until very late July.

Penny wise and pound foolish seemed to rule the day then.

The 744 never flew any routes to IAH for UA. I know it came here on the retirement tour...but I don't even recall it flying here as a swap. If it did it would have used D or the old C14/C16 at Terminal C North.

747s were definitely never scheduled to operate from IAH in revenue service, but I can’t comment on whether or not any went there for maintenance after the merger?

RyanairGuru wrote:

747s were definitely never scheduled to operate from IAH in revenue service, but I can’t comment on whether or not any went there for maintenance after the merger?

IIRC, 747 maintenance was mostly done at the SFO MRO.

The UA 744 made a handful of visits to IAH, but it was a pretty rare event.


https://www.airliners.net/search?aircra ... region=159

Same with EWR. This was an Olympics charter.

RyanairGuru wrote:

747s were definitely never scheduled to operate from IAH in revenue service, but I can’t comment on whether or not any went there for maintenance after the merger?

Shortly after the merger, UA isolated the entire 747-400 fleet at the time to SFO where maintenance was generally, always performed on them. The 747s had serious reliability issues. In order to improve their dispatch reliability, they ended up flying almost exclusively out of SFO. The ORD 747 routes were planes that were flown between the two hubs.

The 747s, post merger, didn't operate regular revenue service from IAH or EWR.

I wonder if the 747s-to-IAH plan was something that was discussed early in the merger and eventually shot down? Can confirm they never flew to IAH in the regular schedule.

UA made the decision not to invest in heavy mantenance on the 747s, and the results were reliability issues. This could have been partially eliminated thru investing in your equipment, but decision made to not do so hence issues.

intotheair wrote:

The UA 744 made a handful of visits to IAH, but it was a pretty rare event.

Thanks for the IAH photos.

It’s a shame the Tilton era regime didn’t take better care of the 747-422s and that a business case couldn’t be made for the -8i series. Oh well, I passed on my chance to fly 747s when I had it.

A filing error caused a bit of a panic on United's South American network this past Monday. It took a few hours to rectify the mistake. In a nutshell, IAH-SCL service appeared to have been cancelled 25SEP22 - 31MAR23.

https://twitter.com/ByERussell/status/1 ... 9434109953

Pre merger United flew the 747-SP/200/400 from EWR to SFO, NRT and LHR. This is the 1980s thru to 1998.

Continental flew the 747-200 to Honolulu from Houston in the early 90’s.

Cmac787 wrote:

Continental flew the 747-200 to Honolulu from Houston in the early 90’s.

In the early ‘90s Continental flew IAH-HNL-NRT with a 747-200.

STT757 wrote:

Cmac787 wrote:

Continental flew the 747-200 to Honolulu from Houston in the early 90’s.

In the early ‘90s Continental flew IAH-HNL-NRT with a 747-200.

Were these AirMike crews? I know there was a time that AirMike considered it's fleet to include 722's, D10's and a couple 74's. In fact, CO was so proud of those Pacific routes that CO flights 1/2 were IAH (or LAX depending on the time)-HNL-GUM. Then other widebody routes were GUM-NRT, so presumably those crews would turn around the NRT-HNL leg.

My neighbor in Colorado was an AirMike pilot his whole career with CO, based in GUM. He started on the 727, the FO on the DC10, then FO on the 747, before Captain on the DC10, and finally ending his career on the 756 (probably mostly the 764's that were GUM based, but I think it did involve some mainland scheduling on the 75's.) His favorite was always the DC10's as a pilot, and he hated the 747's. He said a bunch of the pilots had one armed jackets because your outboard arm would be freezing and your inboard arm would be boiling.

cosyr wrote:

STT757 wrote:

Cmac787 wrote:

Continental flew the 747-200 to Honolulu from Houston in the early 90’s.

In the early ‘90s Continental flew IAH-HNL-NRT with a 747-200.

Were these AirMike crews? I know there was a time that AirMike considered it's fleet to include 722's, D10's and a couple 74's. In fact, CO was so proud of those Pacific routes that CO flights 1/2 were IAH (or LAX depending on the time)-HNL-GUM. Then other widebody routes were GUM-NRT, so presumably those crews would turn around the NRT-HNL leg.

My neighbor in Colorado was an AirMike pilot his whole career with CO, based in GUM. He started on the 727, the FO on the DC10, then FO on the 747, before Captain on the DC10, and finally ending his career on the 756 (probably mostly the 764's that were GUM based, but I think it did involve some mainland scheduling on the 75's.) His favorite was always the DC10's as a pilot, and he hated the 747's. He said a bunch of the pilots had one armed jackets because your outboard arm would be freezing and your inboard arm would be boiling.

Somewhat non-sequitur, I don’t believe CO ever had a widebody pilot domicile in GUM. 727 and then 737, yes (continuing to today), but WB flying was substantially staffed by HNL (until 2001) and mainland-based pilots.

gullairACK wrote:

SRGVA67 wrote:

After UA relaunching their IAD-GVA flight this summer, they will already cancel it as from 01 SEP 22. Are loads that bad or is it again a matter of aircraft shortage ? Any chance of seeing this flight back again in the future ?

I believe it is a crewing issue for 757/767 fleet. DUBORD and SNNEWR also were cut back 3 weeks yet were quite solid in bookings for the affected weeks. Other cut options triggered slot protection issues from what I heard. SNNEWR was messy with no reprotection, so I'd imagine considerable thought went into the decision. There was a strong reinforcement of return to service in Spring 23 with the advisory.

Speaking of that part of the world, it would be nice to have an alternative to the utter mess that is LHR when it comes to flying to England. Manchester was once double daily from EWR, as was Birmingham (albeit briefly). Has Brexit really killed any non-LHR English market that badly? Maybe next summer we see UA at least do a EWR-MAN rotation once again on the hopes that business traffic has picked up somewhat by then.

mah584jr wrote:

Air Wisconsin will exit its partnership with United Airlines by March of 2023 and will begin flying for AA.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/air-wisco ... -airlines/

Thanks for sharing. That is good news in terms of shedding CRJ200’s

codc10 wrote:

Somewhat non-sequitur, I don’t believe CO ever had a widebody pilot domicile in GUM. 727 and then 737, yes (continuing to today), but WB flying was substantially staffed by HNL (until 2001) and mainland-based pilots.

That's incorrect. When CO moved the DC-10 base out of HNL, it went to GUM*. Five DC-10-10s were based in GUM and DC-10-30s came through from both HNL and NRT. The GUM based DC-10-10s flew KIX, HKG and MNL among others. I held GUM DC-10 FO for a short while.

Also, in the late 1990s, CO had 2, then 3, 747-200s based in GUM. This was to satisfy a contract with one of the Japanese tour agencies (I don't remember which one right now). The 747s normally flew GUM-NRT and would go to HNL, then LAX, on occasion for maintenance work at LAX.

One memorable flight as a non-rev was a 747 from HNL to GUM with 16 revenue passengers. That was a very rare kind of thing.

*The DC-10 pilot base later went back to HNL (1998?).

United will resume daily IAD-AMS flights on 29 October. Article is in Dutch.

https://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/nieuws/ ... -amsterdam

Velocirapture wrote:

codc10 wrote:

Somewhat non-sequitur, I don’t believe CO ever had a widebody pilot domicile in GUM. 727 and then 737, yes (continuing to today), but WB flying was substantially staffed by HNL (until 2001) and mainland-based pilots.

That's incorrect. When CO moved the DC-10 base out of HNL, it went to GUM*. Five DC-10-10s were based in GUM and DC-10-30s came through from both HNL and NRT. The GUM based DC-10-10s flew KIX, HKG and MNL among others. I held GUM DC-10 FO for a short while.

Also, in the late 1990s, CO had 2, then 3, 747-200s based in GUM. This was to satisfy a contract with one of the Japanese tour agencies (I don't remember which one right now). The 747s normally flew GUM-NRT and would go to HNL, then LAX, on occasion for maintenance work at LAX.

One memorable flight as a non-rev was a 747 from HNL to GUM with 16 revenue passengers. That was a very rare kind of thing.

*The DC-10 pilot base later went back to HNL (1998?).

Very interesting… I always thought CO kept the DC-10 pilot base in HNL even after the Australia/NZ/Oceania flying was pulled down in the early 90s. I know HNL closed in 01.

And the 747s… the pilot domicile was GUM too? Very interesting. How large were the respective bases at that time? Clearly the GUM operation was much more lucrative before the late 90s. Thanks for the bit of history!

codc10 wrote:

Velocirapture wrote:

codc10 wrote:

Somewhat non-sequitur, I don’t believe CO ever had a widebody pilot domicile in GUM. 727 and then 737, yes (continuing to today), but WB flying was substantially staffed by HNL (until 2001) and mainland-based pilots.

That's incorrect. When CO moved the DC-10 base out of HNL, it went to GUM*. Five DC-10-10s were based in GUM and DC-10-30s came through from both HNL and NRT. The GUM based DC-10-10s flew KIX, HKG and MNL among others. I held GUM DC-10 FO for a short while.

Also, in the late 1990s, CO had 2, then 3, 747-200s based in GUM. This was to satisfy a contract with one of the Japanese tour agencies (I don't remember which one right now). The 747s normally flew GUM-NRT and would go to HNL, then LAX, on occasion for maintenance work at LAX.

One memorable flight as a non-rev was a 747 from HNL to GUM with 16 revenue passengers. That was a very rare kind of thing.

*The DC-10 pilot base later went back to HNL (1998?).

Very interesting… I always thought CO kept the DC-10 pilot base in HNL even after the Australia/NZ/Oceania flying was pulled down in the early 90s. I know HNL closed in 01.

And the 747s… the pilot domicile was GUM too? Very interesting. How large were the respective bases at that time? Clearly the GUM operation was much more lucrative before the late 90s. Thanks for the bit of history!

Yup. The neighbor of mine that I mentioned was based at GUM throughout nearly his entire career at CO, which meant that GUM had a base for 727's, D10's, 747's, and when the D10's retired, he switched to the 756, for the 764's that replaced the D10's in Micronesia.

cosyr wrote:

codc10 wrote:

Velocirapture wrote:

That's incorrect. When CO moved the DC-10 base out of HNL, it went to GUM*. Five DC-10-10s were based in GUM and DC-10-30s came through from both HNL and NRT. The GUM based DC-10-10s flew KIX, HKG and MNL among others. I held GUM DC-10 FO for a short while.

Also, in the late 1990s, CO had 2, then 3, 747-200s based in GUM. This was to satisfy a contract with one of the Japanese tour agencies (I don't remember which one right now). The 747s normally flew GUM-NRT and would go to HNL, then LAX, on occasion for maintenance work at LAX.

One memorable flight as a non-rev was a 747 from HNL to GUM with 16 revenue passengers. That was a very rare kind of thing.

*The DC-10 pilot base later went back to HNL (1998?).

Very interesting… I always thought CO kept the DC-10 pilot base in HNL even after the Australia/NZ/Oceania flying was pulled down in the early 90s. I know HNL closed in 01.

And the 747s… the pilot domicile was GUM too? Very interesting. How large were the respective bases at that time? Clearly the GUM operation was much more lucrative before the late 90s. Thanks for the bit of history!

Yup. The neighbor of mine that I mentioned was based at GUM throughout nearly his entire career at CO, which meant that GUM had a base for 727's, D10's, 747's, and when the D10's retired, he switched to the 756, for the 764's that replaced the D10's in Micronesia.

The only gap I have now is the brief moment 757s were flying in Micronesia in the late 90s. Was there a GUM 757 domicile then?

When the 767s went to Micronesia in 2001 (following DC-10 retirement) they were staffed from the mainland as there was never a GUM WB base as long as the 767s were in the CO fleet (2000). At one time I believe EWR-HNL-GUM-NRT-GUM-HNL-EWR was something like a 7-day trip. Maybe less, as CO had some rather aggressive (productive??) work rules and duty limits for pilots, as was permissible in the pre-117 days.

Wasn't there a subfleet of GUM/HNL 764s? I thought there was a special configuration of maybe four frames?

codc10 wrote:

And the 747s… the pilot domicile was GUM too?

Yes. For a time, there was a GUM 747 pilot base. At that time, it was the only 747 pilot base at CO.

codc10 wrote:

The only gap I have now is the brief moment 757s were flying in Micronesia in the late 90s. Was there a GUM 757 domicile then?

Yes. That base didn't last real long before the 757s were moved back to the mainland.

intotheair wrote:

Wasn't there a subfleet of GUM/HNL 764s? I thought there was a special configuration of maybe four frames?

Yes. IIRC - and my memory isn't great on this question - six of the 16 764s had a higher density cabin configuration for Hawaii flights. Those aircraft also served HNL-GUM. I don't recall if they flew NGO-HNL, though.

3D101CA wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

USAirALB wrote:

I highly doubt you will ever see NGO-Mainland US service on any US carrier in the foreseeable future.

One can buy DTW-NGO today, a DL A350. Frequency isn't what it used to be. Call it the Toyota shuttle.

Outside of Tokyo, other smaller markets don't have much service to mainland US. KIX only has SFO and LAX, while NGO has DTW only. Even UA served SFO-NGO at one point but ended the route soon after.

What frequency is DTW-NGO going to be at in the future? Didn't know it was a Toyota shuttle. Always found it strange how DL operated DTW to NGO, not even UA could make SFO-NGO work.

SFO-NGO was a long time ago. I asked a friend of mine working for UA in Japan at the time and was told that it was based solely on a corporate contract with a Japanese company, forget which one, and it was the customer who went to UA asking for a bid. They were in a nasty dispute with JAL and NH was well aware of the situation and not giving very attractive bids as a result. After I think a year the customer made up with JAL and NH and the UA contract was not renewed and the route was dropped. Not first had knowledge, so take it with a grain of salt. But probably some truth in there.

I flew it once, from TPE! For some strange reason UA's NRT-TPE leg during this time was switched to NGO but it was not well thought out. When we landed in NGO we had to deplane and go through security just like NRT. But we were not allowed to use any lounge! We had to go back to the gate area, which did not have a lot of seating, until we reboarded. I never took it again.

mah584jr wrote:

Air Wisconsin will exit its partnership with United Airlines by March of 2023 and will begin flying for AA.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/air-wisco ... -airlines/

I don't believe United ever got over ZW stabbing them in the back years ago. especially after they built the B concourse exeension at ORD hust for their use.
I'm not surprised. now, because they wanted to fly for American then. That mess was UGLY!

3D101CA wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

USAirALB wrote:

I highly doubt you will ever see NGO-Mainland US service on any US carrier in the foreseeable future.

One can buy DTW-NGO today, a DL A350. Frequency isn't what it used to be. Call it the Toyota shuttle.

Outside of Tokyo, other smaller markets don't have much service to mainland US. KIX only has SFO and LAX, while NGO has DTW only. Even UA served SFO-NGO at one point but ended the route soon after.

What frequency is DTW-NGO going to be at in the future? Didn't know it was a Toyota shuttle. Always found it strange how DL operated DTW to NGO, not even UA could make SFO-NGO work.

I won't guess a future DTW-NGO frequency. This isn't VFR traffic. The EPA's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory is in Ann Arbor. Toyota Technical Center USA is in Ann Arbor. Denso (world's 2nd-largest auto supplier, with a ton of revenue in N America) has a North American HQ in Southfield, MI, thirty minutes from DTW, and their world HQ 35 minutes from NGO.

intotheair wrote:

Wasn't there a subfleet of GUM/HNL 764s? I thought there was a special configuration of maybe four frames?

The last 4 764s delivered… 063-066. 20J/236Y, IIRC. Internally, “76H” for “high-density”. Reconfigured to 35J around when CO obtained LHR slots.

Velocirapture wrote:

codc10 wrote:

And the 747s… the pilot domicile was GUM too?

Yes. For a time, there was a GUM 747 pilot base. At that time, it was the only 747 pilot base at CO.

codc10 wrote:

The only gap I have now is the brief moment 757s were flying in Micronesia in the late 90s. Was there a GUM 757 domicile then?

Yes. That base didn't last real long before the 757s were moved back to the mainland.

intotheair wrote:

Wasn't there a subfleet of GUM/HNL 764s? I thought there was a special configuration of maybe four frames?

Yes. IIRC - and my memory isn't great on this question - six of the 16 764s had a higher density cabin configuration for Hawaii flights. Those aircraft also served HNL-GUM. I don't recall if they flew NGO-HNL, though.

There were 4 764's with only 20 J seats, instead of the usual 35. There was a pilot group based in GUM for those.

cosyr wrote:

There was a pilot group based in GUM for those.

767s replaced DC-10s in the Pacific in 2001, and for the entire time after that, pretty much up until the merger, the only WB flying through GUM was 1x HNL-GUM-NRT. Hawaii had EWR/IAH, plus LAX/NGO that went away by 2008, and briefly IAH-OGG. All of those were flown by mainland pilots and the GUM flying was a multi-day pairing by a mainland crew.

After 9/11 the only CO B756 bases I am aware of were on the mainland, EWR/IAH. I don't think there was a GUM B756 base once the 767s replaced the -10s, unless one would count special duty/TDY assignments. I'm happy to be proven wrong but this one I am pretty sure about.

Well I am thinking we should be hearing more about the TATL schedule within the next month or 2. From what I have heard so far is that UA is planning to return to MAN, having acquired the rights to do so already. BUD is also heavily rumored. PRG will finally be launching as well. As for new routes I’d expect to see 2-3 spots from EWR. Seville, Spain would perform well in my opinion and is probably being considered based off PMI success.

Would UA give EWR-ORY/LGW a shot? It seems to me as though there is not enough capacity on EWR-LHR. As for a fact, most of UA’s well established TATL routes came up short in terms of capacity this year. Many routes were completely sold out for days on end over the summer. Additional capacity on EWR-AMS/BCN/MAD/LIS/MXP/MUC is long over due in my opinion.

B6SpiritofEWR wrote:

It seems to me as though there is not enough capacity on EWR-LHR. As for a fact, most of UA’s well established TATL routes came up short in terms of capacity this year. Many routes were completely sold out for days on end over the summer. Additional capacity on EWR-AMS/BCN/MAD/LIS/MXP/MUC is long over due in my opinion.

Wouldn't it be something if UAL had another 52 777's for building next summer's schedule?

strfyr51 wrote:

mah584jr wrote:

Air Wisconsin will exit its partnership with United Airlines by March of 2023 and will begin flying for AA.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/air-wisco ... -airlines/

I don't believe United ever got over ZW stabbing them in the back years ago. especially after they built the B concourse exeension at ORD hust for their use.
I'm not surprised. now, because they wanted to fly for American then. That mess was UGLY!

Can you explain the ZW stabbing UA in the back comment? As I recall, after UA declared bankruptcy they dropped ZW like an anvil. Maybe there’s more to the story than that?