United Airlines and Its New Flights From Hong Kong

Reagarding route network and network planning I can easily rate United Airlines as the most interesting carrier in the United States. The carrier tries some things that the other major airlines in the country wouldn’t even dare to. That is particularly the case with its Pacific and Asian portion of the network. Well, United Airlines has done it again, another expansion is among us with uncommon, for US carriers, route structure.

Hong Kong a Mini Base for United Flights to Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City

This was a rich week in terms of United Airlines related news. However, the first piece of information to touch upon is without a doubt the interesting operations the carrier will be operating out of Hong Kong in the latter stages of 2025. Let me drive you through what United is planning.

October 2025, pending government approval, United Airlines is planning to use Hong Kong as a launch pad for its its newest Asian destinations:

• Bangkok
• Ho Chi Minh City

This is how its going to work. United operates 2 daily flights to HKIA (Hong Kong Interantional Airport) from LAX and San Francisco. It will be branching out those services with new spokes reaching the southeast Asian destinations.

Both Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok will be daily services, making United the only US carrier to opearate every day of the week to the two cities.

Interestingly, Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok will share launch date and aircraft type. They will both start operating October 26th, 2025, with a Boeing 787-9 aircraft. That might indicate that it’ll be the Los Angeles flights to extend towards the new destinations. In that case, technically that set of crew should layover in Hong Kong and continue the journey onwards and there shouldn’t be a crew base of sorts.

Also Adding Adelaide to The Mix – United Airlines’ New Route Spree

This is kind of a peculiar destiantion choice for United Airlines. It makes total sense to serve the largest and most economically relevant cities in Australia, Melbourne and Sydney, Brisbane makes sense because of those juicy state subsidies Queensland is dishing out, but does Adelaide? It’ll be a 3x weekly flight, so no major commitment, but I do have some doubt there will be strong enough demand to maintain the flight and make it profitable and a success. Adelaide flights will enter the United network October 25th, 2025.

Finally, More Flights to Manila for United Airlines in 2025

Last but not least, United will be adding a second flight to Manila, Philippines, on the same day it is expected to launch its new Adelaide flight. The carrier will be adding a second daily flight between its San Francisco base and Manila. The means a flat doubling of capacity on the route with another Boeing 777-300ER on the route.

Those two services are in addition to Philippine Airlines service, which also operates a high-capacity Boeing 777-300ER daily on the route.