The Boeing 767-400ER is United Airlines’ least used aircraft this year after a
handful of planes came out of long-term storage in time for the summer season.
This move was partially due to the grounding of some Boeing 777-200s. On United’s list of
least used aircraft, the 767-400ER comes out on top, but is followed by the 737 MAX 8,
787-8, CRJ-700, and 787-10. Let’s take a look at where the 767-400ER is flying these days.
Sixteen aircraft comprise United’s 767-400ER fleet
with an average age of 20.2 years at the time of preparing this video.
All of these twinjets previously flew with Continental Airlines, and all have 240 seats.
There are 39 fully-flat seats in business class, with a forward-facing, 2-1-2 configuration.
There are also 70 Economy Plus seats and 131 in regular economy (with a pleasant 2-3-2 layout).
After grounding the 767 variant in March 2020, the jets were used again some 14 months later
in May 2021. Hub-to-hub Newark to Houston Intercontinental was the sole route in May,
with just one aircraft in operation. Use of the aircraft type slowly and cautiously
ramped up from there, with international service materializing later in the summer.
While United has 16 767-400ERs, only ten are currently active as of early November. At the time
of making this video, just half of the operational aircraft, all based at Newark, were in the air.
N67052: Lisbon to Newark N68061: Dublin to Newark
N69063: Newark to San Juan N76064: Madrid to Newark
N76065: Barcelona to Newark
Analysis of schedules provided by United to OAG indicates that the 767-400ER has just
547,680 seats this year across 2,282 flights. To put that into context, the type had just shy
of 9,000 flights and almost 2.1 million seats in 2019. If 2019 had been examined instead,
the twin-aisle variant would have been the sixth least-used type for United Airlines.
In 2021, the 737 MAX 8 very closely follows in use. This is hardly surprising when it
only began revenue service in July. The MAX 8 has almost double the seats for sale, with Newark and
Houston being the main hubs to see the narrowbody. The 767-400ER isn’t used on many routes this year,
with regular or semi-regular examples shown here. The long trip from Honolulu to Newark
sees the aircraft more than any other route. A distance of 4,692 miles (7,986km), it is the USA’s
third-longest domestic airport-pair, and it has a block time to Hawaii of 11 hours and five minutes.
Honolulu-Newark Houston-Newark
Newark-Lisbon Newark-Dublin
Honolulu-Washington Newark-Barcelona
Newark-Madrid Newark-San Juan
Washington-Los Angeles Newark-Athens
Newark-Munich Houston-Rio de Janeiro
As you can tell, the network is nicely split between international and domestic service,
helped by the pandemic and a consequent redeployment of assets that resulted in a massive
surge in domestic widebody use this summer. Indeed, while the domestic market accounted
for just 14% of United’s 767-400ER capacity in 2019, it is now virtually half, sitting at 49%.
Have you flown this particular aircraft with United Airlines?
What did you think of it? Share your experiences in the comments.