United Airlines held a media day last week where they made major announcements about their product plans, from a premium-configured small regional jet to their own version of the Air New Zealand ‘Sky Couch’.
They’re certainly the most improved U.S. airline of the past decade. They have a lot to be proud of, though there’s also a long way to go along many dimensions. They’re also in some sense the flag carrier of the United States, serving more far-flung destinations than their peers.
However in telling this narrative there is, unsurprisingly, some embellishment. Live and Let’s Fly writes about some of the claims that they made. I want to offer the truth behind them.
- “Our global network is four times larger than Pan Am in their international heyday.” Wait, can this possibly be true? Yes, but only if you define global network in a way that’s non-intuitive for this content.
United’s route network is larger, but not close to four times larger. They have about 800 daily flights to 150 international destinations.
Pan Am at its peak in the late-1960s served about 120 destinations in 86 countries. So United is larger, even internationally, but that’s about 20% more destinations not 4 times as many.
Even though the claim here is about a ‘global network’ if you include domestic destinations (and until the acquisition of National Airlines, Pan Am was an outbound international carrier) United’s ~ 380 destinations would compare to Pan Am’s 120 and that’s a bit more than 3x, it is not 4x.
The only way to get to United’s claim is available seat miles. United flies about 151 billion international seat miles. Pan Am was at 36 billion in 1973, and 47 billion in 191. So United can claim more seat miles against a specific Pan Am year – selectively defining Pan Am’s ‘heydey’ rather than peak flying.
That’s not really fair, and what they clearly want to suggest isn’t true, but parsing their words in the most generous manner possible I can come up with a definition that makes it true.
Pan Am Boeing 747, credit: aussieairliners.org via Wikimedia Commons - “It serves more cities than any other airline in the world, by a wide margin”
This is technically true, but it doesn’t mean what most people think it means. Most of United’s cities are domestic. The United States is a large market. United is currently at 392 destinations, versus 367 for American, 315 for Delta, 291 for Turkish, and 227 for Ryanair. Also, by the metric which it’s true it is very much not a wide margin – 7% more than American Airlines.
The framing here is that United is a large global airline, but it’s not close to the most global. They serve around 150 international destinations.
- Turkish Airlines, which serves the most countries, flies to 245 international destinations.
- Even SAS has them beat with 152. And American actually isn’t that far behind (it’s just many of American’s international destinations are Caribbean, Mexico, and Latin America).
Verdict: United’s claim is true, but not by a wide margin. Its implied claim is inaccurate, by a wide margin.
- Turkish Airlines, which serves the most countries, flies to 245 international destinations.
- “Houston has grown into a powerhouse for Central and South America, with more connectivity than even Miami to Central America” Houston has been United’s most-ignored hub for years, so the claim here surprised me.
Houston is a powerhouse of Latin flying? Sure. But again I have to torture the language to get to “more connectivity than even Miami to Central America.” Houston doesn’t have more Central America destinations than Miami does. There are fewer frequencies to Central America than from Miami. And Miami is even bigger when you add in South America.
So here’s how I can get to United saying something that is true-ish. “Connectivity” means possible connections via Houston, not actual Latin America service.
Houston Intercontinental has about 120 domestic non-stops and serves a total of 193 destinations. Miami offers flights to 83 domestic cities, and 190 total cities. So while Miami’s international route network is larger, Houston might be said to offer more one-stop connections to Latin America, because it has service from U.S. cities. It’s really a point about Houston’s domestic network, given its location in the middle of the country, and less about Latin service.
United is a big global airline. They are competing with Delta for premium business. And they seem to be taking a page from Delta on self-aggrandizement.
United makes so much money.
It’s finally time to agree to a decent pay contact for the FA’s!
@RunningJock – after flight attendants rejected a deal their union negotiated last summer, they came to a new agreement last week https://viewfromthewing.com/united-flight-attendants-reach-deal-top-pay-would-exceed-100-an-hour-after-5-5-years-without-a-raise/
It’s United – where execs and fans manipulate every facts possible to make themselves look better. It’s a sure sign of insecurity.
and they can’t explain how they manage to generate just 2/3 of the profits – $1.7 billion less – than DL generates even though they fly 10% more ASMs than DL.
UA is the airline version of somebody that desperately needs Ozempic – or Jardiance since it works better – since UA has focused for decades on quantity rather than quality.
Putting aside the quibbling about whether United is 2x 3x or 4x the size of PanAm, two things that are true: if you can pick an airline to call the USA’s flag carrier, United is the one you would pick. United does have far more destinations and far more capacity than Delta or American or any other U.S. airline. And United is certainly much larger that PanAm ever was in international capacity. United operates far more international gateways than PanAm ever did, and there are many destinations that receive flights from multiple gateways and sometimes multiple daily flights on given routes. All of United’s 7 mainland hubs have robust international service, plus HNL.
PanAm mainly served Europe from JFK and a little IAD, mainly served South America from Miami, and mainly served Asia from SFO and LAX. Back in the day, PanAm had many more less than daily routes but also far more beyond service and fifth freedom routes.
Of course PanAm was largely prevented from having a robust U.S. domestic network and adequate domestic connections, and that may have ultimately contributed to its demise.
It’s Tim Dunn – who ignores facts when clearly presented due to an unhealthy bias towards Delta.
UNITED RISING
How crazy to use the accepted metric for comparing passenger airline operational size, ASMs! Too funny.
Thanks for the example in how statistics can be manipulated. As usual, getting the facts is what matters. But far too many people don’t bother, perhaps don’t know, how to do that with claims from advertisers or politicians.
One big difference:
PA = extinct
UA = extant
I think that is all that really matters. At least some Pan Am people migrated to United during the assets divestitures.
Tim Dunn would never manipulate facts or be insecure.