According to a recent post by airline industry expert Brian Sumers in his “The Airline Observer” online newsletter, United Airlines executives are planning to redirect some of the 737 aircraft and pilots based in Guam to use for flights from its Tokyo Narita hub to destinations within Asia.
Sumers reported that United’s network chief Patrick Quayle wanted to take the Guam-based aircraft, “where business is weaker than before the pandemic,” and use them on intra-Asia routes.
The first test case begins in October, with a route from Narita to Cebu, which was originally scheduled for July but was delayed by the Federal Aviation Administration, according to Sumers.
It will be United’s first intra-Asia route from Tokyo since it canceled Narita to Seoul Incheon in 2017, “which was the last of many major markets United served from Tokyo in its heyday, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei,” Sumers added.
“Keep in mind that it really isn’t the case of pilots or planes being reassigned. They both will still be based in Guam. Right now, United has only announced a single route from Tokyo,” Sumers told the PDN Friday.
United’s Chief Commercial Officer Andew Nocella told Sumers, “In a perfect world, United might try something similar in Europe, flying narrow bodies 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.”
Sumers also told the PDN that, “the airplane probably will flow from Guam to Tokyo to Cebu to Tokyo to Guam. But it’s still a Guam-based airplane. If there are other destinations, they will probably follow that pattern. But remember that Nocela and Quayle only told me more routes might be intriguing, not that they are definitely going to fly more.”