United Airlines’ Asia focus
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Graham Atkinson, executive vice president and chief customer officer of United Airlines, told TD earlier this week that the airline plans to focus on its capacity to North East Asia.
This follows the recent announcement of a new nonstop service between Los Angeles and Hong Kong due to commence in Oct 07.
Atkinson said part of the carrier’s expansion also includes a boost to capacity to Europe (Rome) and the Middle East.
He also said United wasn’t opposed to further aviation liberalisation of routes between Australia and the USA.
Singapore Airlines has seized on the comments, continuing to pressure Australian authorities to enable SIA to operate flights between Australia and the US. Currently Qantas and United are the only airlines to operate non-stop on the route and SQ is calling for “open competition”.
However Australian domestic carrier Virgin Blue has ordered a number of 777 aircraft to operate across the Pacific, and there arealso other carriers which take passengers between Australia and the USA including Air NZ, Air Tahiti Nui and Hawaiian Airlines.
There are also a number of other US carriers which hold traffic rights on the route but have declined to enter the market.
MEANWHILE UA has also revealed more details about planned upgrades to its premium cabins. Atkinson said that while UA recognises that it will be “late to market” with its premium product offering, it sees this as an advantage saying it will “encapsulate the best of all of them (competitors product)”.
The upgrades will include a refit of UA’s first and business class cabins with lie flat beds plus video on demand. However the economy offering will still lag behind competitors, with UA confirming it won’t be placing individual screens in its economy class cabins as part of the upgrades, instead opting to install new plasma screens.
UA said it expects to have 50% of its planes fitted with the new product by Oct 08 and the remainder by Oct 09.
The airline said it’s also looking at offering more self service products in airports to meet with consumer demand which Atkinson said will lead to improvements to check-in and boarding.
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