Thu May 03, 2018 6:06 am
Understandable move. ORD is currently overserved by transpacific flights. It's surprising that the SF Bay Area, with a much larger O&D market and Asian population, has comparable service levels to several Asian cities as ORD.
From SF Bay Area:
Tokyo: 2x daily SFO-NRT (UA, NH), 2x daily SFO-HND (UA, JL), 1x daily SJC-NRT (NH), (35x weekly total)
Beijing: 2x daily SFO-PEK (UA, CA), 5x weekly SJC-PEK (HU), (19x weekly total)
Shanghai: 3x daily SFO-PVG (UA, MU), 3x weekly SJC-PVG (CA), (24x weekly total)
Taipei: 4x daily + 4x weekly SFO-TPE (UA, BR, CI) (32x weekly total)
Hong Kong: 5x daily + 4x weekly SFO-HKG (UA, CX, SQ, HX) (39x weekly total)
From Chicago:
Tokyo: 4x daily ORD-NRT (UA, NH, AA, JL), 1x daily ORD-HND (NH), (35x weekly total)
Beijing: 2x daily + 4x weekly ORD-PEK (UA, AA, HU), (18x weekly total)
Shanghai: 2x daily + 5x weekly ORD-PVG (UA, AA, MU), (19x weekly total)
Taipei: 5x weekly ORD-TPE (BR) (5x weekly total)
Hong Kong: 2x daily ORD-HKG (UA, CX) (14x weekly total)
San Francisco-San Jose has roughly 6 times the Chinese population and 4 times the Japanese population of the Chicagoland area. Yet only TPE and HKG have significantly more coverage from SFO. The numbers for TYO, PEK, and SHA are very much comparable. Anecdotally, a much larger proportion of the transpacific traffic from Chicago is connecting from places like NYC, BOS, PHL, TOR, WAS, Florida, and the Midwest.
Since 2012, the markets that provided the most feed have seen a capacity glut.
At JFK: NH, JL, CA, MU, BR, CX increased frequency and CZ, MF, HU began service
BOS went from no transpacific service to 1x daily JL to NRT, 11x weekly HU to PEK and PVG, and 1x daily CX to HKG
YYZ got HU, MU and CZ
These new non-stop flights diminished the role of ORD as a connection hub for Asia-bound travelers from the East Coast. The situation remains largely unchanged for the Midwest and Southeast US, but Asia demand is also lower from those areas. Meanwhile at ORD, as HU, MU, BR, CX began service, UA and AA downgauged capacity. UA went from 744s to 772s, and AA went from 772s to 788s. ORD simply does not have the volume of local traffic to support 14+ daily transpacific flights. Heck, BR is struggling to fill their ORD flights, while IAH is doing well.
Last edited by
theasianguy on Thu May 03, 2018 6:10 am, edited 1 time in total.