United's new Asia strategy: 'You don’t double down on something that does poorly'

The morning of Feb. 11, 1986, was a new dawn for United Airlines. Overnight, the carrier went from offering just three flights across the Pacific Ocean to operating a full hub at Tokyo's Narita International Airport (NRT) and connecting the U.S. with at least six cities in Asia.

That hub, which United bought from Pan Am for the bargain price of $715 million (about $2 billion today when adjusted for inflation), lasted another 30 years. Then, the Chicago-based airline ended its last nonstop flight into Asia from Tokyo — which went to Seoul's Incheon International Airport (ICN) — in favor of connections with partner All Nippon Airways.

By the late 2010s, the word from United executives was that the airline could serve cities like Bangkok and Taipei, Taiwan, more profitably either nonstop from the U.S. or via a partner airline. Similarly, competitor Delta Air Lines closed its Narita hub in 2020 in favor of connections through Seoul with partner Korean Air.

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History has now come full circle.

United will launch flights from Tokyo to Chinggis Khaan International Airport (UBN) in Mongolia on May 1. Service to Kaohsiung International Airport (KHH) in Taiwan begins July 11. Both flights will operate on Boeing 737s from the carrier's hub at Guam's Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport (GUM).

The new dots on the airline's map are the latest in an experiment that tests American travelers' desire for easy access to off-the-beaten-path destinations. No longer is United happy with just ferrying travelers to Tokyo and handing them off to ANA — it instead wants to carry them on United planes in a gambit that it sees as having greater potential rewards than costs.

"We've reimagined Narita for today's world with the efficient nonstops that we have but then going after high-value traffic [to] hard-to-reach places that we can offer a unique selling proposition for," Patrick Quayle, who leads global network planning and alliances at United, said in an interview.

Reimagining Tokyo Narita

United can reimagine Narita thanks to two unique aspects of its business.

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The first is the Pan Am assets it bought years ago. The assets came with the rare right to fly passengers beyond Tokyo to other countries (something that is known as "fifth freedom" in aviation parlance). United kept those rights even when it ended intra-Asia flights from Tokyo in 2017.

Fifth-freedom routes are rare, but not unheard of, among global airlines. Some of the best known — and maybe most controversial — are the ones Emirates flies between Athens International Airport (ATH) and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR); Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP) and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK); and Miami International Airport (MIA) and Bogota's El Dorado International Airport (BOG). Travelers can buy tickets on these routes without ever flying through the carrier's Dubai base.

The second unique aspect working in United's favor is that the airline gained a hub in Guam through its merger with Continental Airlines in 2010. The Boeing 737s there give United the option to serve secondary cities in Asia with a plane almost half the size of the larger Boeing 777s and 787s that it flies nonstop from the mainland U.S.

Those attributes prompted the carrier to give a Tokyo hub one more try. It first tested flights from Narita to Mactan-Cebu International Airport (CEB) in the Philippines beginning in October 2024, and it added Palau International Airport (ROR) this April.

"We have these 737s and a slot portfolio at Narita, and all the feed from the United States on wide-body jets, and it created a unique opportunity," Andrew Nocella, United's chief commercial officer, said on The Air Show podcast last June. "This seemed like something we would like to try, and the advanced bookings indicate that it's going to be very successful."

United doubles down on intra-Asia routes

Quayle was coy when asked about Cebu — United's first intra-Asia route from Tokyo in seven years. He said only that the airline aims for "double-digit" margins across its network.

"You don't double down on something that does poorly, I'll just put it that way," he added.

And if the new routes from Tokyo to Taiwan, Palau and Mongolia were not proof enough of success, United has unveiled plans to add new connections via Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) and Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN) in October.

United also has the right to fly fifth-freedom routes from Hong Kong. Remember its short-lived, round-the-world flight in the 1990s that stopped in Hong Kong en route to Delhi and London? Those rights allow it to add the new Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City nonstops.

But these are not "tag" flights in the traditional sense. Brett Snyder, founder of Cranky Concierge and author of the Cranky Flier blog, put it well when he said: "A single 787 can connect perfectly to and from the four flights over the Pacific. And those four flights over the Pacific just happen to be split into two banks with the same cities served. It makes this an easy set-up."

Analyzing United's proposed schedules, Snyder found that United could fly both routes from Hong Kong with a single plane and that each intra-Asia flight would connect to two U.S.-bound flights: one to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and another to San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

None of this logic guarantees success, however. Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City are two destinations that United travelers can already easily access via ANA and other partners. The airline is betting that there's enough traffic to make its own flights profitable.

The current geopolitical situation — wherein the U.S. is at odds with many countries amid President Donald Trump's trade war — certainly does not improve the odds of success for United's global expansion. Already, foreign arrivals to the U.S. from Canada and Western Europe are down.

But Quayle remains confident that the new routes will pay off.

"It's going to get to a point where we're going to have to add more capacity into Narita because the demand is so strong," he said.

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