United Airlines in June plans to launch three weekly nonstop
roundtrip services between San Francisco and Chengdu, China, which, along with
new nonstop flights to Taipei, Taiwan, "are good examples of the second
phase of our Pacific network strategy," chief revenue officer Jim Compton
said last month.
Already claiming nonstop service "to the most cities in
Asia" when stacked against its U.S.-based competitors, Compton said United
now is "beginning to introduce nonstop service to secondary cities"
on the continent. He previously said he sees more Chengdu-like opportunities.
While United and its U.S. competitors previously have
steered their limited China access toward Shanghai and Beijing, Chengdu
represents an emerging opportunity for corporate business.
"When I first saw this I said to myself, 'Where in the
world is Chengdu and why in the world would United be adding nonstop service to
this hole in the wall in central China?' " Executive Travel president
Steve Glenn wrote in a September 2013 client newsletter. "Now that I have
proven to the world how ignorant I am, I proceeded next to Google 'Chengdu.' "
The result? He was "amazed" at the city's size, which at 14 million
residents surpasses the populations of New York City and Los Angeles combined.
Announcing the new route last year, United noted the city
also "has been one of the country's fastest-developing cities
economically, and more than 200 Fortune
500 companies have a presence in the city."
Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways parent International
Airlines Group, said he sees booming corporate demand for the Chinese city. "We
went to corporate customers and asked where we should fly," he said in
November at the 2013 Boyd Group International Aviation Forecast Summit in
Baltimore. "Chengdu came right up."
To meet that demand, BA in September 2013 launched three
weekly roundtrips between Chengdu and London Heathrow using a four-cabin Boeing
777-200. BA in May will add two additional weekly flights.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes director of market analysis Michael
Warner at the conference called Chengdu "the tech center of Western China,"
a fitting match for United's San Francisco city pair.
United will serve the route using a Boeing 787 aircraft,
which Compton last year during an earnings call said "makes this service
viable and enables United to be the first mover among domestic carriers to
serve such important markets in Asia."
Boeing's Warner explained, "There's never been enough
demand to fill a large widebody aircraft. It's a long distance, about 6,000 miles
from San Francisco. You've always needed a large widebody in the past. Now with
a 787 coming in, United has it configured with 219 seats. It's the perfect
size—a midsize airplane—to fill a route like San Francisco to Chengdu and link
those cities, which people have been asking for."
Chinese Carriers
Boost U.S. Services
Regarding the U.S.-China bilateral agreement for reciprocal
airline access, "Chinese airlines are not using all of the frequencies
allocated to them, whereas the U.S. carriers are pretty much at the top,"
said Hainan Airlines managing director of North America Joel Chusid in November
at the 2013 Boyd Group International Aviation Forecast Summit in Baltimore.
Since then, several airlines have made moves to use those rights.
Hainan, which already offers Seattle-Beijing services, plans
to launch on June 20 four weekly roundtrip nonstop flights between Boston and
Beijing, "the first scheduled nonstop flight from Boston to Mainland China
in history," according to the airline. Hainan in September 2013 launched
twice-weekly nonstop Chicago-Beijing flights, which will increase to daily
service in June.
Meanwhile, China Eastern plans to launch in April daily San
Francisco-Shanghai service, adding to a network that includes Shanghai service
to Los Angeles, New York and Honolulu.
Air China on June 10 plans to launch four weekly nonstop
roundtrip flights between Washington Dulles and Beijing.
Air China in July 2013 launched four weekly services between
Beijing and Houston, which vice president of North America Dr. Zhihang Chi
during the Boyd conference said "turned our traditional air model on its
head." That's partly because "we almost always go to coastal cities
with a big ethnic Chinese population. This time we did not." Instead, the
airline's Houston service is "going after mainstream business traffic, in
this case the oil traffic." Houston is a key hub for Air China's Star
Alliance partner United. Air China, meanwhile, in January this year launched
Beijing-Honolulu services. The airline from its Beijing hub also serves New
York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
This report originally
appeared in the Feb. 3, 2014, edition of Business
Travel News.