United Airlines reports strong demand for flights between Hong Kong and San Francisco but warns fully restoring passenger traffic will take time
- United Airlines resumes daily flights between Hong Kong and San Francisco, with more bookings than expected
- Airline operated daily service between Hong Kong and Chicago, Newark and San Francisco, totalling 90 flights per month in 2019
Bookings for United Airlines flights between Hong Kong and the US have been “stronger than expected” for the coming months, the American carrier has said, but cautioned more time was needed to restore passenger traffic to pre-pandemic levels.
Expressing confidence in Hong Kong’s recovery, United’s director of Greater China, Korea and Southeast Asia sales, Walter Dias, said the load factor – a measure of how well an airline was filling available seats – was almost 97 per cent on its first daily nonstop service from Hong Kong to San Francisco on Monday.
The Chicago-based carrier relaunched services to San Francisco on Monday after suspending flights along the route in February 2020 after the city imposed travel and quarantine restrictions on passengers and crew due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While it briefly resumed that July, it mostly flew cargo-only flights in and out of the city.
“We decided to restart it with a 777-300, which is the largest aircraft in our fleet and we decided to go right to daily service. So that demonstrates our confidence in Hong Kong and our commitment,” Dias said.
The relaunch was a milestone for the carrier because Hong Kong was a “critical point” in its Asia-Pacific network, he said. During the pandemic, it dropped to just two flights to the region from 33. It now operates 20 routes.
