United's Plans For Tokyo

United wants to see if it can shift some Guam-based airplanes to Tokyo, chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella and network SVP Patrick Quayle told me in a wide-ranging interview.

Dear readers,

United’s network chief Patrick Quayle knows how much his predecessors complained about the economics of a U.S. airline operating a Tokyo hub, and he knows what his competitors in Atlanta thought about their (now shuttered) operation at Narita. But Quayle has some 737s and a pilot base in Guam, where business is weaker than before the pandemic, and he has traffic rights in Tokyo. And he is a problem-solver. So rather than returning some Guam-based airplanes to the mainland to fly them between El Paso and Houston (see what I am doing there?), Quayle wants to see if he can make money from unique assets that were controlled by United and Continental before the two airlines merged.

His test case begins in October, with a route from Narita to Cebu. It'll be United's first intra-Asia route from Tokyo since it cancelled Narita to Seoul Incheon in 2017. Incheon was the last of many major markets United served from Tokyo in its heyday, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei. All that flying moved to San Francisco, where it still works best, but in a world where premium leisure is hot and people want to visit new places, Quayle and his boss, chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella, say there’s potential opportunity in Asia. Cebu is a logical first flight, Nocella said, because San Francisco-Manila has been performing well, and the Philippines has strong demand.¹

"Our job is solving problems and being creative, and not complaining," Quayle said earlier this month in an interview at the IATA Annual General Meeting. "We have these assets that are out in the western Pacific, so let's use it to try something different."

In a perfect world, Nocella said, United might try something similar in Europe, flying narrowbodies into short runway airports in say, the Greek Islands, that Americans love to visit. But Guam has 737s, and Europe does not, making this a more viable option.

“I don't think we will be looking at flying widebody jets beyond Tokyo anytime soon,” Nocella said. “But we have these 737s and a slot portfolio at Narita, and all the feed from the United States on widebody jets, and it created a unique opportunity. This seemed like something we would like to try, and the advanced bookings indicate that it's going to be very successful."

I think the judgment here is sound and it’s a good idea to try out. It's no secret I have been complimentary of United over the past couple of years — which is as bizarre to me as it might be to you, considering the frayed relations I kept with corporate communications between 2014 and 2020, and the anti-leak investigation that my work provoked.² I've said nice things in part because the product is better, the employees are happier, the network is broader, and customers increasingly pay a premium to fly United. But it's more than that. What I like is that United is willing to take chances. Not every new route works — for evidence, just read Brett Snyder's recent writeups about United's awful winter load factors on some of its sexier routes — but the commercial team is willing to try new ideas. If it doesn't work, United cancels it, including failed nonstops from my home market of Los Angeles to Singapore, Brisbane and Auckland.

Many airline people don't want to try new things. And they're typically more apprehensive if an approach failed in the past. United’s previous management was not shy about complaining about the intra-Asia operation a decade ago before they dismantled it, and I suspect the losses were substantial. Even if times are different now, some management teams might not want to return with a similar idea, out of fear they would fail again and look like idiots. Still, Nocella said he and Quayle are not deterred.

"We have a list of all these high-profile places that don't have nonstop service to the U.S. that could be of interest," Nocella said. "We're going to try and see if we can make some magic.”

Here are some interesting things I learned from Quayle and Nocella about United's network design.