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Apple has connections so great that United even introduced a whole airport leg SFO-PVG just for them (unless it's an urban legend).

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I think this was SF to Chengdu. From: https://www.reddit.com/r/whoathatsinteresting/comments/1tspz...

From the book: Apple in China

I was curious, so I researched it (aka prompted ChatGPT). SFO-PVG was established in 2000, long before Apple offshored all of their manufacturing to China. An article from the time describes it being something that was in demand among Silicon Valley in general[1] rather than Apple particularly. In 2019, United revealed that Apple does spend $35 million/yr on that single route, averaging 50 seats/day[2], so I suppose that's the source of the legend.

[1]https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/shanghai-to-s-f-flig...

[2]https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/11/apple-united-airline-pu...

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