Thanks to points and miles, I get to travel comfortably in premium cabins much of the time. However, I am not naive to the fact that most customers flying up front paid cold, hard cash. Many of these passengers likely work for a large company, one that maintains a contract with the airline for preferred pricing or other arrangements.
@LAflyer posted this photo on Twitter today, which shows two banner ads by United. The ads included some very interesting information about United’s corporate customers. It turns out, Apple is United’s largest global account, contributing $150 million in annual revenue. The ad most likely only account for flights out of San Francisco, so actual spending by Apple might be even higher than that.
Curious who are @United largest global corporate accounts? @Apple is in the top spot and contributes very much to success of SFO international flying especially the Shanghai service #UnitedAirlines #United #Apple #SFO #PVG #Shanghai #China pic.twitter.com/HNvIrz8wDg
— LAflyer (@LAflyr) January 11, 2019
And here is a staggering statistic: Apple purchases 50 Business Class seats in the San Francisco to Shanghai market every. day. United operates two daily flights between San Francisco (SFO) to Shanghai-Pudong (PVG), using two Boeing 787 jets. As a point of reference, the 787-9 offers 48 Business Class seats, while the 787-8 offers 36.
Here are the primary destinations for Apple out of San Francisco:
- Shanghai-Pudong (PVG)
- Hong Kong (HKG)
- Taipei (TPE)
- London-Heathrow (LHR)
- Seoul-Incheon (ICN)
- Singapore (SIN)
- Munich (MUC)
- Tokyo-Handea (HND)
- Beijing (PEK)
- Tel Aviv (TLV)
Other large accounts for United include Facebook, Roche, and Google, all of which contribute over $34 million a year.
Are you surprised by the list of companies, or the magnitude of their business for United?
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5 comments
Crazy!
I can’t imagine that Apple is super happy that United is plastering their spend data all over the place.
Ex-Apple employee here, yup when working at Apple I used to fly out of SFO every other week to PVG, TPE, and HND, and always without fail there would be tonnes of coworkers on these flights in business. Our internal system always made us prioritize either Cathay (SFO-HKG-PVG/SHA) or United (SFO-PVG). When united used to run the 747 on the PVG route the entire upperdeck would informally be an Apple lounge/hangout zone haha. Also, many (and i mean MANY) of us had Global Services (I had it once before I swapped to Asiana), it was never hard to achieve, esp if you worked in Apple operations (they guys who work with the supply chain and product engineering) given that we flew 3-4 times a month international long haul return trips in J and mostly clocked upwards of 200K flown butt in seat miles a year. Awesome flying but stressful work haha!
[…] United’s Largest Global Account in SFO? Apple, which Buys 50 Business Class Seats to Shanghai Dail…: http://bit.ly/2SQqzI2 11, 2019 at 03:41PM […]
[…] no secret now that Apple is United Airlines’ biggest global account. The tech giant buys a whopping 50 business class seats between San Francisco and Shanghai and spends a cool $150 million annually […]