And one more tidbit. DL now operates more flights from ATL, DTW, and MSP to East Asia than UA does from EWR and IAD – 2 from ATL growing to 3 this summer – and 2.5 from DTW – HND, ICN and 3 day/week PVG and 2 from MSP which happens to be to two cities while UA from ORD is just to 2 airports in Tokyo.
DL always was larger in the eastern US than UA and now that trend is spreading to include Asia.
That reality is not lost on UA execs.

Last week flew AA J LAX-HND 787
No IFE
Auto window shade didn’t tint so being on the left side I had sun streaming into the cabin at my seat. And I was told to write to Boeing
When I complained via the app, I was thanked for flying their “world class airline”
When I complained about their “world class airline” a second time I was awarded 7,500 miles.

The reality is that all of this growth that you and others think will come to UA is simply not possible to the destinations and on the routes that UA flew even 5 years ago while DL will be much more capable of serving those routes with the A350-900 and economics will be even better on the A350-1000 on routes that can justify that kind of capacity – which will be similar to the UA 777-300ER but at much lower operating costs.

UA’s rapid growth wasn’t sustainable as soon as DL started growing w/ much more efficient and capable aircraft; Russian, Middle East and Ukraine airspace closures plus treaty limitations combined w/ the limits of the 787 cut the number of routes dramatically.

UA is not going to get any advantage to China because the DOT is allowing AA, DL and UA to each get equal amounts of frequencies UNTIL they are all back to their pre-covid allocations and what the treaty allows. No one realistically expects China to reopen all frequencies because they had to subsidize their carriers in order to support the number of flights they had pre-covid and the Chinese are not going to allow US carriers to carry a higher percentage of flights than Chinese carriers.

In Japan, Korea, and China, DL and UA are the same size and DL will overtake UA. DL is adding flights elsewhere in Asia besides those 3 countries and will continue to do so.

As hard as it is for you to accept, UA’s dominance of the Pacific will be cut.
And DL is growing its Pacific with much more cost efficient aircraft.

The reason why UA is not growing its Atlantic this year is because they know that DL made considerably more money flying slightly less capacity. DL has been more profitable flying the Pacific with less capacity. UA simply cannot continue to pursue growth when it can’t deliver margins as high as DL and while adding debt.
Once again, DL retired billions in debt in 2023 and had $2 billion in free cash flow while UA is burning cash even w/ its reduced number of aircraft deliveries.
DL spent $1.5 billion less on fuel than UA in 2023 and generated more revenue and $2 billion more in profits.

DL has the best formula for international growth and they will use it.

DL is the largest US carrier to SYD? UA is double daily from SFO while also serving LAX and IAH. That’s four flights to SYD.

UA has also said the additional 787s coming online, starting this year, will be used to rebuild China. DL is only even with UA to China (assuming you exclude HKG, which makes UA significantly bigger) due to artificial constraints. The UA hubs are much better suited for Asia flying, especially SFO that doesn’t have the fierce international competition in LAX or the relatively low O&D in SEA.

Pre-pandemic, direct flights for this route in J were typically in the $4.5K to $5K range, but the same tix have been stuck in the $8k range for some time now. I personally attribute it to the fact that ANA and JAL are the only viable options out of JFK to Tokyo (UA uses EWR; DL, w/o a Japanese alliance partner, isn’t always a good choice for passengers that reside in Japan).