Maps: Potential United Boeing 787 operations for 2014

Image Credit: United Airlines

With the announcement of thrice weekly San Francisco – Chengdu to commence in June 2014, Chicago-based full service carrier United Airlines has the planned the following long haul routes for its fleet of Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners in 2014.

San Francisco – Chengdu –> 3x weekly
San Francisco – Osaka Kansai –> Daily
Seattle – Tokyo Narita –> Daily
Denver – Tokyo Narita –> Daily
Los Angeles – Tokyo Narita –> Daily
Los Angeles – Shanghai Pudong –> Daily
Houston – Lagos –> 5x weekly

Now in order to properly rotate aircraft from the 787-8’s current base at Houston, it would also make sense for United to operate daily Houston-Denver and Houston-San Francisco flights domestically using the 787. Such an operation would fully utilize United’s planned fleet of 11 Boeing 787-8s with frame utilization as follows:

1 frame – San Francisco – Chengdu
1 frame – Seattle – Tokyo Narita
1 frame – San Francisco – Osaka Kansai
3 frames – Los Angeles – Tokyo Narita and Los Angeles – Shanghai Pudong (a Houston flight can be added here as well to improve utilization)
2 frames – Houston – Denver and Denver – Tokyo Narita
2 frames – Houston – San Francisco and Houston Lagos
1 frame – Spare

The 787 will be primarily used as a trans-Pacific aircraft in 2014, with six of seven long haul routes focused on Trans-Pacific flights; all from the Western United States. The maps below outline the planned (and proposed domestic) 787 routes for United in 2014. It appears that the 787 has already begun to fulfill its promised role of expanding US-Asia air links as the 767 did on trans-Atlantic flights.

Trans-Pacific

Other