Maybe UA think it can deploy their 757's to better routes. But golly, they've been chomping at the bit for their new outside the perimeter slot for so long that I'd anticipate they would max out the passenger capacity now that they finally have it. Just seems like they are not fully capitalizing on the exemption. Is it just that they can allocate their resources better, or am I missing something? FWIW, they often run 757's ORD-DCA
They can allocate their resources better. They have mountains of data that help the route planning department decide on how to maximize fleet utilization. With few exceptions, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt.
There can be a lot of other reasons. One might be gate space. They may not have enough gates at DCA that can take a 757. This caused a lot of back and forth at BOS as the CO gates could fit 737s but could not fit the 757s UA used to SFO without closing down the next gate. Add in 757s with winglets and you have more of a problem. I would love to see SFO-DCA as a new p.s. destination with lie flats, printed menus, avod, etc, but I don't think it's going to happen soon. Cost may be an issue - but if we used what Nancy Polosi spent on her taxpayer funded 757 private jet and put it in use for commercial service, that will solve the 757 problem. http://www.panamalaw.org/nancy_pelosi_gets_a_200_seat_jet.html
Maybe look at what is more likely factual information: http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/jet.asp You can apparently thank W for the Speaker of the House flying on Air Force planes. I'd be all for them flying commercial. Preferably United in case of Pelosi... to bring this thread BACK ON TOPIC.
I also do not anticipate what would effectively be ps service. Just insufficient demand. As far as gate space, I do not know what dimensions they are dealing with, but I recall that for the Obama inauguration, there was a spate of upguaging, and IIRC, numerous 757's there at the same time. What has me most perplexed is that when the SFO slot seems to be the scarcest and most coveted resourse, they do not capitalize upon it with the largest plane legally and technically permissible (Can a 757 fueled up for a transcon take off from DCA's runways? - AS manages with 737's, but perhaps a fueled 757 cannot be fueled for anything beyond DEN, which UA does on most days).
I don't know the answer, but if I were to guess I'd guess that either they're not sure of the demand and might change equipment in the future or that there's some technical limitation that prevents an absolutely full 757 form taking off form DCA on a transcon to SFO, including the additional fuel that's often required to deal with WX due to the maritime layer into SFO.
AA will be using a 757 from DCA -LAX nonstop in the late 1990s for a two or 3 year period TWA used a 757 nonstop from DCA to LAX too. it is possible for a fully fueled 757 to do a trans con from dca
It's a new route; the planes are going to be pretty empty for awhile. I'm certain they can upgrade to a 757 if and when the demand picks up. Sent from a tiny keyboard using the milepoint app.
I doubt this will be very empty for awhile. There is a *&$%load of high yield O/D traffic SFO/WAS. Perhaps they want to test seeing how high the highest average fare can go on a smaller plane. The fare buckets may be the same, but the few Ws and lower will sure go quickly.
SFO-DCA might be a new flight, but it's not a new market. Odds are that most pax who will be taking this flight already fly UA from IAD.
The short answer is likely that UA wants to examine the flight's early financial performance before potentially pulling an sCO/sUA 752 rotation from elsewhere to operate the service. That said, for "our" purposes, I'd expect this flight to rank ahead of IAD-SFO and on par with EWR-SFO in terms of upgrade difficulty (i.e., CPUs will be more or less nonexistent for everyone, though cert-based upgrades requested more than a month before flight date stand a decent shot).
Silly question with CO running the show. DCA-SFO is a domestic flight, and a 757 is an international bird, of course.
Keeping it classy, I see. Also of note is that UA has the only new route which will see direct competition; VX won the same route authority as announced today. There will certainly be demand on the new route but if the capacity is too great the yields won't be there and that's sortof the whole point.
That's not quite right; AA got LAX-DCA which has direct competition from AS which already had LAX-DCA.
I didn't consider the AA one since they were guaranteed whichever route they applied for. But there is competition on that route. And WN plans to market DCA-AUS-SAN as a through flight, theoretically competing with US's choice.
I would be surprised if a 757 even needs to be fully fueled for this route, since the flight is less than 2/3 of the maximum range of the aircraft.
