Is United MASSIVELY Expanding China Flights, Or What’s Going On?

United Airlines has updated its winter schedule for 2025-2026, and it includes a gargantuan expansion to Mainland China and Hong Kong. Will these flights actually operate, though, or what’s the intent here?

United schedules more China routes, launching this winter

United has loaded several new routes to Asia into its schedule. With these schedule filings, all the routes are expected to launch as of the start of the IATA winter season, in late October 2025:

• Daily Chicago (ORD) to Beijing (PEK) flights, operated by Boeing 777-200ERs
• Daily Chicago (ORD) to Shanghai (PVG) flights, operated by Boeing 787-8s
• Daily Newark (EWR) to Beijing (PEK) flights, operated by Boeing 777-200ERs
• Daily Newark (EWR) to Hong Kong (HKG) flights, operated by Boeing 777-300ERs
• Daily Newark (EWR) to Shanghai (PVG) flights, operated by Boeing 777-200ERs
• 3x weekly San Francisco (SFO) to Chengdu (CTU) flights, operated by Boeing 787-9s — note that CTU is listed as the airport code, but TFU is now the airport used for long haul flights

All the flights are already bookable, though currently only the highest fare classes are available. One would assume that will change soon, as first loading the highest fare classes is standard practice, though that might not happen… we’ll see!

These all represent route resumptions, as these are routes that United has operated in the past. However, they’re all pre-pandemic routes, which haven’t been served in recent years.

We’ve seen a lot of placeholder flights in the schedule for China in recent years, but in this case, we’ve also started to see inventory loaded into the schedule, which is more than we’ve often seen in the past.

Will these routes operate, or are they just placeholders?

These United routes to Mainland China and Hong Kong are now on sale (at the highest fare classes), but what’s actually going on here? Does United actually intend to operate all of these routes, or are these placeholders? A few thoughts…

United does need places to fly its wide body aircraft in winter. United’s South Pacific expansion hasn’t been terribly profitable, and we’ve seen the airline cancel flights there. Maybe United is trying to predict where demand will increase next, and hopes that demand between the United States and China will come back strong. Admittedly this seems like a huge gamble.

Keep in mind that flights between the United States and China are slot controlled, and I’m not sure if United has actually gotten permission to operate these routes, or how it’s able to add so many new routes so quickly. The Department of Transportation (DOT) dormancy waivers for China flights end as of late October 2025, so perhaps that’s part of the motivation here. Presumably those could be extended, though.

Operating a lot of China flights has been challenging in recent years, not just due to lack of demand in some markets, but also because of restrictions with using Russian airspace. Is United scheduling these flights based on the belief that Russian airspace restrictions will end in the coming months? Maybe that ends up being true, but I also wouldn’t assume that it’s a given.

So we’ll have to mark this as “developing” for now, but it sure is an interesting number of new routes to see added to the schedule. If these were purely placeholders, you wouldn’t think that inventory would be loaded.

Bottom line

United has just scheduled six new routes to Mainland China and Hong Kong, for travel as of late October 2025. This includes routes to Beijing, Chengdu, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. I’m not sure what exactly is going on here, and where these routes fall on the scale of placeholders to firm plans. Presumably at least some of these additions are based on the assumption that Russian airspace restrictions will end.

What do you make of these United routes being added to the schedule?