UAL to operate Kansai-HNL

[ZMAN777]

Just saw a note on the web that ANA and UAL are expected to announce tomorrow (12/20) that UAL will be flying Kansai-Honolulu in lieu of existing ANA aricraft in a codeshare capacity. ANA will redeploy their aircraft on the Kansai-Shanghai route. The article did not mention what aircraft UAL would operate. I'm guessing 777 service.
Interesting development. This may mean the HNL domicile stays open afterall. Looks like the beginning of shifting ANA assets around to benefit both carriers. Rumor has it that ANA may pull out of the IAD-NRT market to be replaced by UAL 777 service. Something that UAL has looked at before (prior to 9/11). Stay tuned.
Cheers,
Z

 

[ITRADE]

Lots of Japanese tourists on that one.[BR][BR]Kinda surprising to hear any news about KIX. The landing fees there are something awful and the airport authority is losing money at a rate that would even impress United.

 

[Ukridge]

ZMan777: I could not help but noticing your remark about United expressing an interest in a Dulles to Narita flight. Is this a distinct possiblity? Our firm sends representatives out from Europe to both the U.S. and Asia and sometimes from Europe to America to Asia. Such a flight would make it significantly easier for those that need to stop in the U.S. before going to Japan. Since by default, we seem to stick to LH and UAL, this would be of great benefit. For some reason we never gravitated to ANA or some of the other Star carriers. I do not know the reason why, but we have 1000 other things a day to do rather than contemplete how our travel department runs its program. Let us know if this is in the cards.
As an aside, is this the Star's manner of assisting UAL financially? Rather than a cash infusion they will lat UAL work for the moeny and gain the revenue? Best of luck!

 

[Cosmo]

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On 12/19/2002 1054 PM ZMAN777 wrote:

I'm guessing 777 service.
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[/blockquote]
I think that is a good assumption. According to the December OAG, UA is shifting the current SFO-KIX flights to B777s from B747-400s in early January. And if you look at the arrival and departure times of those flights in KIX (1650 and 1545, respectively, giving a ground time of almost 23 hours), you can see the aircraft efficiency gains from adding a KIX-HNL round trip which I believe will begin on March 30. Plus it will keep a few more cockpit and cabin crews from being furloughed.

 

[Oliver Stone''s Apprentice]

Why would this keep the HNL domicile alive? If ever a domicile should have been closed it was HNL.

 

[ZMAN777]

[blockquote]
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On 12/21/2002 9:06:09 PM eolesen wrote:

Why would this keep the HNL domicile alive? If ever a domicile should have been closed it was HNL.
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[/blockquote]

Well to answer your question look at it this way. Currently the 747-400 pilot domicile flys 6 lines/month HNL-NRT. The company isn't particularly happy with the ineffiencies of the low number of lines from HNL and the economics of the 747-400 based there.

Bring in the 777, add another 6 lines of flying, perhaps some tag flying out of NRT and KIX and suddendly the domicile makes more sense. One can build much better and efficient ID's when you increase the amount of flying out of a particualar domicile than if it's limited in scope of operations.

Cheers,
Z

 

[Oliver Stone''s Apprentice]

Hmmm.... Seems to me that you could build just as effective of a line without having the extra crew base and the inefficiencies that it drives by considering NRT a beyond city, i.e. SFO-NRT-HNL-KIX-SFO.

Why ALPA continues to hold onto this one is beyond me.

 

[magsau]

I believe some of the issues regarding the flying from HNL is due to the time zone/ doctors agreements we have with the company. If you use a 777 crew to fly SFO/HNL/KIX/NRT/HNL/SFO you are pressing against and probably over the ability of the pilots to fly this safely.

As an aside i do favor closing HNL as a domocile for both pilots and F/a's, also it is time UAL closed the foreign domociles for F/A's. In IAD a F/A friend was telling me that the IAD flight attendants have zero lines of flying from IAD to CDG/FRA/LHR for Jan. These are all crewed by foreign f/a's. Most if not all of these are junior to the IAD stews. Another trick the company is using is staffing the flights to the bare minumum number of F/A's. For the 767 that is six, of the six one is a purser position and two are language quals. with the other three being regular line holders. That is not many positions for them to bid. If the loads (which they have been lately) are heavy they staff the rest of the positions with reserves (generally 3 more for a total of 9 on the 767) therefore putting the junior people on instead of the ones that could have bid and held the trip if they had built the lines accordingly.

While this is not my fight it does appear to be an injustice to the F/A's and I support the closing of the foreign domociles as part of the cost saving measures.

 

[Ukridge]

Since I and my colleagues fly quite a bit on the European Star partners as well as United to some U.S. destinations I have to say that if it is the 'foreign' flight attendants that lend the cultural element that we business travelers enjoy, then I would suggest that United keep them. This often reaches a little bit more than just the language qualification and can make the "foreigner" a little more at home. More than once I have needed assistance with a travel issue and it was beneficial to have the language AND the understanding of the problem that I as a "foreigner" needed. I say this is an asset within Star but I am only the customer and have little say other than my choice of with whom I choose to book. By the way, did not CNN ban the word "foreign" as politically incorrect?
Any word on the Washington/Narita replacement for ANA?

 

[magsau]

UkRidge,

I could not agree with you more that the "foreign" flight attendants are a benefit to some passengers. However, did you know that many of the LHR, FRA and CDG flight attendants at UAL are not citizens of those coutries. They are US citizens that work there. However, a large contingent of those foreign flight attendants are citizens of the UK, Germany, and France. While this service of having the "nationals" on board can be seen by some as a good program, no other foreign carrier hires US flight attendants to fly their flights to and from the states. Do you see Air France hiring americans to make their product more americanized? Same question for BA, LH and all the other carriers? The answer is NO. They want their airline to be a reflection on their country.

Also, on all international flights UAL has at leat two language qualified flight attendants that often are from the country of which they are "speakers".

As to whether or not the Communist News Network (CNN) has banned foreign I would not know. I have been on a self imposed media blackout for along time now. The only news show I watch is "I have news for you" on the BBC when I am in LHR on a layover. That is the way all news should be presented. It does a great job of pointing out the absurdity of the world news.

Happy New Year

 

[Ukridge]

Magsau wrote: "....no other foreign carrier hires US flight attendants to fly their flights to and from the states. Do you see Air France hiring americans to make their product more americanized? Same question for BA, LH and all the other carriers? The answer is NO. They want their airline to be a reflection on their country."

You are correct in that Air France probably does not hire Americans for their cabin staff as one of the requirements is that one speaks the native language of the French flag carrier. As for the other European carriers I do know that LH has hired a number of sub-continent residents (India etc.) to staff the Bombay and Dehli flights. Many, if not all, the carriers have Asian staff on retainer for the Asian flights. These native speakers provide both the language and the cultural credentials. As for the flights to the U.S. since a carrier such as LH has flight attendants all of whom speak English as well if not better than many Americans, there is not as great a cultural/language gap to cross. Long answer but yes, the European carriers do use non-native staff but nearly all, if not all, speak the host airline language, their native one, and English. A marketable skill!
These touches have made some of the United trans-oceanic flights better though I cannot quible - it is United's choice as to who will staff the flight.
Good Luck