It’s explained here:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/united...s-winter-2025/

 

I've flown HKG numerous times. We are almost always at max takeoff gross weight because of cargo, regardless of total passenger count. We either have to add more flights, or remove cargo if we are going to carrry people for these extra segments. My guess is we add back ORD-HKR or EWR-HKG to accomodate the extra people going to BKK and SGN.

 

United has rights out of HKG and NRT from its PanAm Pacific route and asset purchase in 1985. It was $750M back then which is about $2B in today's dollars. Probably the best investment United ever made aside from PanAm's London Heathrow and Europe operation in the late 80s.

Historically United had a permanent pilot TDY base and FA base in HKG for the round the world flights. The HKG FA base just closed during Covid. Maybe they will reopen it? Now they need to finish refurbishing the United Club there.

 

Also the amount of WBs it would take to fly BKK and SGN direct. With tags the planes are being utilized instead of of sitting around in HKG. I am sure they will eventually be flown direct from the US though.

 

Pretty savvy adds, and especially doing them as tag-ons from HKG (at least initially). Maximizes fleet utilization while not dedicating two (or four) airframes to ultra-longhaul routes that still have a lot of low yielding VFR and/or tourist traffic. That said, Thailand especially is increasingly catering to the luxury tourism and ecotourism markets and I could see either one of these adds ultimately being served viably from SFO nonstop.

Nobody is talking about ADL, which is (at least to me) arguably more interesting. It's a really nice city and the heart of Australian wine country. I'll be curious to see whether they're going after business or leisure travel for that one. Outside of wine, I don't know a whole lot about the Adelaide economy, but I can attest that it's a nice, modern city that isn't as pretentious as either Sydney or Melbourne. Has more of a big town/small city feel to it.

Given that Austin and Adelaide are sister cities, it might be a fun recognition to see them give the same flight number to an AUS-SFO leg.

The second daily MNL will also be really great, especially for the insane amounts of nonrevs that are always trying to get on. I'm sure it will always fill up just like the first one.

 

The planes dont sit around in HKG. one flight arrives from LAX at 6am and leaves at 830am, the other arrvives at 6pm and leaves 8pm. Unless they are planing on retiming these somehow, they just turn back to the US and dont have time to do a BKK turn. Or they will dedicate a plane to do the turn, but the article seems to indicate that is not the case. Although TPG is not exactly a trusted source for detailed information.

 

suggested googling: one country, two systems.

tell your friends they can go.

 

plus china allows transit without visa now. (and has been for the last few years). one can stay in teh country for a few days as long as they are transiting to a different country than where they arrived from.

 

Moscow? Really?

 

That is the key. Apparently doing something like HNL-HKG-GUM will get you detained for questioning.