United Airlines will add a new dot to its international route map with year-round service between San Francisco and Brisbane launching the fall, a sign of United’s deepening partnership with Virgin Australia.
United Airlines Will Launch Brisbane – San Francisco Service This Autumn
Yesterday afternoon, United teased a new route announcement via Instagram stories set to be unveiled later this morning. Thinking about the Virgin Australia connection and the odd timing for a new route announcement, I guessed that United would offer new San Francisco (SFO) – Brisbane (BNE service):
New @united route will be announced tomorrow. I’m going to guess SFO-BNE in time for the Southern summer. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/20jME5KkG7
— Matthew Klint – Live And Let’s Fly (@LiveandLetsFly) June 7, 2022
Sure enough, United later briefed media outlets including Live and Let’s Fly about the new route ahead of the formal announcement. But hours ahead of schedule, Brisbane Airport broke the news, with CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff calling United’s new route “a gamechanger for the tourism industry” in Queensland.
United will launch new 3x-weekly service on October 28, 2022 using a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner featuring:
- 48 business class “Polaris” lie-flat seats
- 21 premium economy “Premium Plus” recliners
- 188 economy class seats
- 39 Economy Plus seats with up to five extra inches of legroom
- 149 standard seats
The schedule will be released later today and tickets will also go on sale. If you’re looking to use your miles on the new route over the Christmas holidays, I would not except to find “saver” premium cabin space, but there might well be economy class seats so keep your eyes peeled. SFO-BNE flights are planned on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday and flights from BNE-SFO are planned for Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.
United already offers more service to Australia than any other U.S. carrier and will resume two suspended routes this winter, bringing the total number of Australia routes to six:
- Houston ⇄ Sydney (resumes this winter)
- Los Angeles ⇄ Melbourne (resumes this winter)
- Los Angeles ⇄ Sydney
- San Francisco ⇄ Brisbane (starts this autumn)
- San Francisco ⇄ Melbourne
- San Francisco ⇄ Sydney
Patrick Quayle, United’s Senior Vice President of International Network, explained:
“With United’s strong history in Australia – and now with a great partner in Virgin Australia – it’s the ideal time for United to expand service to Brisbane as demand for travel continues to grow. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve looked for strategic ways to grow our international network, and we’re proud to be the first U.S. airline to put a new dot on our route map across the Pacific.”
The new route will be partially subsidized by the Queensland Government’s Attracting Aviation Investment Fund. Queensland officials have boasted the new route from United will support nearly 400 local jobs and bring $73 million to the local economy.
CONCLUSION
United Airlines will launch new service to Brisbane from its San Francisco hub starting on October 28, 2022. It’s exciting to see United launch service to a new city in Australia, which marks the first new transpacific route by a U.S. carrier since the pandemic began. Under Quayle’s helm, United has been quite bold in its international expansion and from what Live and Let’s Fly has learned, many of the new routes are performing better than expected as the world emerges from pandemic.
This is great news! I would like to see more frequency and I think the demand is there, especially these days, given how full flights are and how impossible it is to get anything in a premium cabin for a decent fare to or from Oz. I will bet this could easily be a daily flight after they try it for a few months. As well, given everyone wanting to avoid SYD for transfers to other cities in Australia (it’s a really horrid experience), this gives people yet another option besides MEL for onward legs on Virgin Australia. Especially useful given BNE is the closest gateway to the U.S.
Not to mention Brisbane is an excellent connection point for flights up the Queensland Coast to islands and resort towns on the Barrier Reef. Only a quick hop up to Hamilton Island / The Whitsundays / Cairns / Daintree Rainforest / Palm Cove / Port Douglas!
Another excellent new flight added by United!!
United has really taken great advantage of the 787-9 like no other US Airline.
Just look at SFO, their route network is just incredible with flights to Tel Aviv, Delhi, Amsterdam, Tahiti, Singapore and now Brisbane all thanks to the 787.
By far; United has the most comprehensive and impressive reach internationally of any us airline
Yeah, with the most impressive and Comprehensive crappiest international service of any US airline!! Yay!!
Very disappointing that they haven’t resumed LAX-MEL yet, given this was their original Melbourne route, not SFO.
They need to stop being shy in the LA market and go all in, especially now that DL and AA have pretty much surrendered the LA long haul market.
I agree, but an thankful that LAX-MEL will resume this winter.
I think the strategy United is using is right one. United isn’t being shy at LAX they are securing SFO. Before the pandemic United was the dominate carrier at SFO both domestically and internationally. The Bay Area recovery has lagged behind other parts of the country but they are now in full recovery mode United has to once again lock down SFO. LAX-MEL will return this winter but relaunching SFO-MEL first and launching SFO-BNE are the right moves.
Personally, I would have been more intrigued if United was resuming service to the other QLD city they used to fly to, but I suppose BNE makes more sense, especially from SFO.
United is resuming service between IAH-SYD and LAX-MEL this winter, and back in April of this year United resumed service on their SFO-AKL route. By December at the latest United will have resumed all their pre-pandemic flights to the South Pacific plus added an additional route SFO-BNE.
AKL has not been resumed?
I was referring to GUM-CNS. It’ll probably never return
This isn’t a surprise to me. I thought this route was already being planned pre-pandemic?
Nope, not to my knowledge.
UA was not partnered with VAustralia pre-pandemic. They were partnered with Delta then, as part of the multiple bunch of former Airline owners at VA 1.0.
But now with new owners at VAustraloa 2.0, their decision concentrating on Australian domestic and the Pacific Islands/NZ/Bali and striking a partnership with the new owners, plus Qld Government desperate enough to get their market up and running by enticing partial subsidies, the BNE route now makes sense.
Good decision. I’ve flown United between SFO and SYD several times. VERY long flight but always made pleasant by the quality of service. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but UA seems to always put senior, experienced staff on those legs who are very attentive, at least in Business. Much better than my experience with UA flights to Europe.
Somehow, UA released business class award seats on the inaugural flight! I just scooped up a pair. United had been extremely generous with business class awards to Australia recently.
They are? I am here now finishing up a round of meetings and the only way back I could find was via Bangkok and Europe. I could not find any seats whatsoever out of Australia over the pacific for reward travel unless spending 300K via YVR on AC. Good for you in getting the inaugural though!
Yeah, 80,000 for two seats. And I snagged a return two weeks later through TPE on EVA’s new 787 and Polaris from there too SFO. Although it seems the flow of business saver transpacific flights has dried up as quickly as it came. Gotta be quick.
I thought transit via TPE is still prohibited?
It was bookable. At the time I figured things would change by November and United would be able to take care of me if they hadn’t. LO and behold, TPE is now allowing transit passengers and without a PCR test even.
I would like to see United go back to Thailand.