United Airlines will announce several new international routes tomorrow. A post on Twitter gives us some clues as to what they might be.
A short video posted on Twitter include shots from San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, and New York:
New international routes landing tomorrow. Any guesses? pic.twitter.com/xXwDrd9Qh2
— United Airlines (@united) August 21, 2019
Under the leadership of Patrick Quayle, United’s Vice President of International Planning, United has been aggressive in its international route expansion and willing to test out new routes that the 787 has made possible, including Tahiti, Cape Town, and ultralonghaul flights to Singapore, Melbourne, and Sydney.
I’m not expecting anything revolutionary, but since United invites guesses, here are three of mine.
Denver to Paris – the United flights to London and Frankfurt have done well and Norweigian’s Denver to Paris has also performed well. Even though Paris not a Star Alliance connecting hub, I think this route could work. I’d guess Munich, but Lufthansa already has covered and do not know if there is sufficient demand for a second flight. Or perhaps United will just make its London Heathrow service year-around.
San Francisco to Bangkok – ok, I guess I’m just hoping for this one. Commanding a premium yield is so difficult to/from Thailand and there are a slew of connecting options, but nonstop service might on a 787 might make sense and would certainly create buzz. Perhpas Guangzhou (CAN) as a back-up guess from SFO?
Chicago to Madrid – I’d love to see United metal to Madrid as well and if Iberia can make it work, United should too at least during the summer season even without the connecting traffic in Spain.
Newark to Zagreb – American is trying this and United would probably have success on this route during the summer months. Plus, Croatia Airlines is a Star Alliance member offering domestic and regional connections to/from ZAG.
It also would not surprise me to see a couple seasonal flights become year-around. I’d love to see Iceland become year-around, but not sure that is practical.
CONCLUSION
I’m looking forward to the new route announcements tomorrow, which will be announced at 10:00 AM Central Time. There were seven paper planes in the ad so perhaps we will see seven new routes?
Which routes do you think United will add tomorrow?
EWG to ZAG or DBV would be nice. The only direct flights from North America to Croatia are PHL-DBV on American or YYZ-ZAG on Air Canada.
ZAG, BEG, KBP, OTP, etc. would be ideal for ORD. Any two Eastern European cities. Big demand for it. UA needs to redeem themselves in the Chicagoland market somehow. AA put on ORD-ATH this year, which was something that’s been needed for years. Same for the recent announcement of ORD-KRK, again on AA.
Bangkok, who needs Bangkok? Let’s stuff another SFO~SIN down the gullet!
AA’s flight is to Dubrovnik which has a very different market than Zagreb. Most of the tourism in Croatia is either in the Dalmatian Coast/Islands or Istria, Zagreb is in neither.
That said, Croatia Airlines flies from Zagreb to pretty much every airport in Croatia (which is not super easy to get around, except by ferry or plane) with more regularity than any other airline, so the connectivity would be more useful for all tourists to Croatia instead of just those going to Dubrovnik. Unless you are taking a ferry, the only other way to get from Dubrovnik to anywhere else in Croatia is by a very long car ride that I’m pretty sure requires you to transit through Bosnia.
Resumption of service to IST especially now with new airport and Turkish Star Alliance carrier feeder.
Resumption of service to Middle East Dubai
Year round service SFO – AMS
West Coast to MXP or FCO to compete with 3x weekly SFO/LAX to MXP on Air Italy
I think DEN-ZRH.
Here’s why. Edelweiss has been doing this route seasonally, but I think it’s been a tough sell for them simply because there’s no name recognition and they’re only selling tickets here as a Swiss codeshare, which doesn’t usually price properly (competitively) nor does it even reliably show up for routings beyond Zurich.
But, there’s a decent amount of Europe bound traffic and since FRA has both daily service on LH and UA and MUC has daily service on LH, ZRH would give UA direct access to a Star Alliance hub that’s decidedly under-serviced.
DEN to CDG would be amazing for me. Really just hoping for anywhere in Europe (But not Rome. Maybe Amsterdam?)
They already have direct to NRT so can’t imagine they’d do PEK or ICN in Asia.
What’s wrong with Rome?!!? 😉
I, for one, would be very happy with any United direct flight from the western half of the US to FCO … just not one that lands at ~8:00am. Who needs that?
DEN-CDG…..OK, Norwegian Air Shuttle has Denver-Paris already. But it is not good for a certain demographic…..as in the French film industry. These people have bucks, have vacation property in Colorado, and fly business……..UA at least has a legitimate Business Class cabin, which is something Norwegian does not.
Rome….it’s San Francisco that needs it, much more than Denver. Not all that much of a point-to-point/local need in DEN.
What DEN could use, though, is a flight to ICN. Lots of Korean people in the metro DEN area.
Chicago to Madrid on Iberia works because its an alliance hub to hub route. Not sure this would work long term for United.
I would have to agree with you, Derek!
Please just 1 US to HAM flight!
EWR to GIG needs to come back!
Here’s a sleeper.
As someone who splits time between the US and Brazil there is a market completely missed by U.S. carriers. The North East of Brazil. Specifically, Fortaleza. It is the next big thing in South America. The beaches within an hour or two are amazing. The climate is fantastic year round. The airport is one of the most modern in Brazil. Great connectivity to other areas in the north. And one of the closest cities to the U.S. Gol and Latam are doing great on their Miami flights and Air France, KLM, and TAP have flights there from Europe.
Houston or Newark to Fortaleza on a 767-400 would absolutely be a winner and give access to Americans to this very special part of the country. As well, with the Azul partnership, offer a much better transfer city within Brazil to places like Manaus, Natal, Belem etc in a modern and easy to use airport.
According to the video,
1 from SFO
1 from DEN
1 from ORD
5 from EWR
my guess is SFO-MNL/BKK, DEN-PEK/AMS, ORD-MAD, EWR-BUD/IST/NCE/WAW/CPH/OSL/HEL
I would bet they are just announcing the haneda routes
That would be quite disappointing.
maybe San Francisco – Warsaw (WAW)? or Washington – Warsaw?
Warsaw, Poland maybe?
Can we suggest to mr. Patrick Q a new route from Houston to SDQ? America it’s making huge profits under United nose own turf IAH on this route with the increasing Dominican population in Tx.
OK, I came “late to the party” and now know the routes UA will be putting on. And mostly nothing to get excited over.
But it has become obvious that Mr. Quayle is oblivious to the market in the city where his company’s headquarters is located.