The backbone of United’s West Coast operations, San Francisco International Airport
(SF)), is bigger than its neighboring Los Angeles hub. It is a jewel in the airline’s crown for Asia and Oceania travel, premium demand, and supporting tech industry traffic, but what else makes United’s San Francisco hub so special?
San Francisco International Airport
IATA/ICAO Code
SFO/KSFO
Country
United States
CEO
Ivar C. Satero
For Star Alliance carrier 
United Airlines
, San Francisco is its primary transpacific hub. It offers more non-stop services to destinations around the Pacific Rim than any of its other hubs and is geographically the closest mainland hub to Asia, making it perfect for efficient long-haul traffic. United is by far the largest carrier in San Francisco and dominates the SFO-Asia market.
Strong Domestic And International Capacity
Photo: Ryan Patterson | San Francisco International Airport
Domestically, United services most key US cities from San Francisco, such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Houston, and Las Vegas, feeding passengers into its Asia and Oceania-bound flights. Internationally, the carrier is also a major player, with direct routes to Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific. The airline continues to operate as a bridge between Asia and Latin America through its network in San Francisco. Bigger than its Los Angeles (LAX) hub, SFO is United’s biggest hub on the coast, with more flights and destinations; partnered with its Star Alliance allies, such as Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, SFO remains a key transit hub.
United Airlines dominates SFO with around 45% of the market share at the airport, far exceeding Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines. While the carrier does face competition in its Asia-bound services, such as with Cathay Pacific, the airline maintains a solid loyalty base through its MileagePlus
program. The airline has many premium customers, evident through its number of United Global First, Polaris, and Premium Plus seats available on long-haul services from the airport.
Operating from both Terminal 3 and the International Terminal (gates G) at SFO, the airline boasts modern facilities, including a new 25,000-square-foot lounge in Terminal 3. This is complemented by the Polaris Lounge, specifically for international business class travelers. On the West Coast, United continues to outperform the other two of the US Big Three, with more routes and capacity than Delta (Seattle), and American (Los Angeles), for trans-Pacific services.
High-Yielding Passengers Paying The Way
Photo: United Airlines
High-yielding passengers support United’s San Francisco operations, driving high airfares on premium routes. The nearby Silicon Valley traffic, which includes corporate contracts at Unite with Google, Apple, Meta, or Salesforce, sees around 40% of all premium traffic through SFO from the tech-related sector. International routes support the airline’s Asia-Pacific international growth, with the airline serving destinations including Tokyo (Narita and Haneda), Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Singapore, as well as new emerging markets such as Manila, Taipei, and Auckland. London
, Frankfurt, Paris, Zurich, and Amsterdam are on offer for those destined for Europe, whereas those looking to head south can take off to Mexico City, São Paulo, and soon-to-be San Jose (Costa Rica) from May 22.
Domestic routes are mainly premium heavy, including New York, Boston, Washington, and Chicago destinations. The airline’s West Coast shuttles also offer high-frequency services between major cities in the west, including Los Angeles (up to 15 daily), Seattle (up to 10 daily), San Diego, Portland, and Las Vegas. Other key markets include Denver and Houston. Data from Cirium, an online aviation analytics company, outlines the airline’s most popular routes for April 2025:
From
To
Flights this April
Total seats
Available Seat Miles (ASMs)
San Francisco
Newark
326
81,839
209,917,035
San Francisco
Chicago O’Hare
300
65,233
120,420,118
San Francisco
Houston Intercontinental
291
57,660
94,274,100
San Francisco
Los Angeles
291
46,856
15,790,472
San Francisco
Denver
282
56,774
54,900,458
San Francisco
Washington Dulles
240
46,969
113,618,011
San Francisco
San Diego
216
35,663
15,941,361
San Francisco
Las Vegas
204
34,904
14,450,256
San Francisco
Burbank
197
20,724
6,756,024
San Francisco
Santa Ana
197
23,928
8,901,216
Other key domestic routes from SFo include Seattle (192 flights this month), Reno (171), Phoenix Sky Harbor (166), Boston (150), Santa Barbara (144), Austin (141), Palm Springs (141), Salt Lake City (138), and Ontario (136).
Related
United Airlines Increasing Flights In San Francisco By 20% In Push To Reignite Global Gateway
The carrier will offer nearly five times more seats than its competitors at the hub this summer.
The Most Popular Equipment In Use at San Francisco International Airport
Photo: Robin Guess | Shutterstock
Leading the way with the most popular aircraft type used at San Francisco International Airport, by routes served, goes to Houston with the Boeing 737 MAX 9. Data from Cirium identifies that 228 flights will be operated with the aircraft type this month, representing 66,727,620 available seat miles. The Boeing 757
comes in second place, with the 757-200, with operations to Newark Liberty International Airport (serving New York), with 176 flights in April, representing 79,453,440 available seat miles (an average of 5.86 flights a day).
Looking at regional operations, United’s service to Reno has the highest number of Embraer E175 flights, surpassing 141 in April, eating to 1,951,488 available seat miles across the 192-mile flight. Salt Lake City is in second place for this aircraft type, with 137 flights this month, earning 5,744,410 available seat miles. Internationally, the most popular route is to London, with further details noted below:
Most popular international destination
London Heathrow
Airport IATA Code
LHR
Airport ICAO Code
EGLL
Serves
Greater London
United’s most popular equipment on the route
Boeing 777
Flights this April with this type
90
Available seat miles (ASMs)
34,929,720
Distance covered
2,338 miles from SFO to LHR
While United Airlines continues to reap the rewards of a loyal passenger base, it is also a top cargo hub for international shipping; the airport is a US gateway for AI chips, biotechnology, and other e-commerce to and from Asia. The airline has continued improving its cargo synergy at SFO, efficiently combining passenger and freight revenue to outperform other airline rivals.
An Update From United’s Toby Enqvist
Photo: SvetlanaSF | Shutterstock
On April 3, United Airlines held a special event at San Francisco Airport to celebrate its ongoing growth and achievements at its West Coast hub. The airline’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Toby Enqvist, was there and made a speech that acknowledged the airline’s growth at the airport.
With 300 flights a day at SFO, Enqvist acknowledged the 13,000 hard-working Americans who support United’s San Francisco Operations. This is expected to surpass 14,000 by the end of the year as the airline continues to grow in the Bay Area. United continues to grow as one of the largest employers in the Bay Area.
Enqvist explained that SFO is currently home to the highest percentage of widebody operations across all of its hubs, and 17% of all operations from SFO are on widebody aircraft. This means the airport welcomes more widebody aircraft from United than any other airport, and due to the number of these aircraft in operation here, more cargo is flying in and out of the airport with United than any other airline.
Related
United Airlines Adds Capacity On 2 Long Haul Routes From San Francisco
In July, United Airlines will also offer four new routes from San Francisco that it had not flown during the same month in 2024.
Future Expansion In San Francisco With the United
Photo: Airbus
United Airlines continues to expand its domestic and international reach from San Francisco. This expansion will be supported by the airline’s long-awaited Airbus A321XLR, which is set to revolutionize thinner long-haul routes. Sustainable aviation fuel, also known as SAF, will continue to be explored in partnership with Californian producers and support the airline’s ambitions to lower its overall carbon emissions.
New routes are also set to take off in 2025,
with Panama City (PTY) and San Jose (SJC) commencing on May 22 and operating year-round
. United, the carrier that operates more international routes to and from Australia than any other airline (even Qantas), will also launch its hotly anticipated direct route to Adelaide (ADL), South Australia, on December 11, becoming the first airline ever to connect the South Australian state to the US. Not only is this new route to the ‘Wine Capital’ of Australia expected to be popular with growers on both sides of the Pacific, but it also stimulates plenty of connecting travel between United’s international and domestic operations from SFO.
While Adelaide is set to operate on a seasonal basis, it can be expected that United will continually crunch the numbers on this route to see if it would make commercial sense to operate year-round. In the meantime, its seasonal route to Adelaide will work alongside its other seasonal routes to the South Pacific, including Christchurch (CHC). Other seasonal routes operated from San Francisco include Amsterdam, Anchorage, Barcelona, Belize City, Fort Meyers, Jackson Hole, Liberia (Costa Rica), Montreal, Rome Fiumicino
and Zurich.
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