As United Airlines looks toward the future and re-evaluates its international route map, is a new service in the works between Houston and Tel Aviv?
Will United Airlines Launch Houston – Tel Aviv Service?
United has posted a flight attendant job opening for its hub at Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). The primary requirement: the applicant must be a Hebrew speaker.
While that may not definitely foreshadow the new route, it seems a very strong sign that United is at least considering launching nonstop service from Houston to Tel Aviv (TLV).
At least before the pandemic, Israel was a very lucrative market for United, which offers nonstop service between Tel Aviv and its hubs in:
- Chicago ORD)
- Newark (EWR)
- San Francisco (SFO)
- Washington Dulles (IAD) [this route is currently on hiatus]
Just this week, American Airlines announced that its new Dallas (DFW) to Tel Aviv service would be further delayed. AA announced the new route in August 2019, but blamed the pandemic for scrapping its launch in September 2020 and pushing back its launch incrementally, now to May 2022.
This week, Israel reopened again to foreign visitors who are fully vaccinated.
CONCLUSION
While United Airlines is always considering (and does not comment on) new routes under proposal, the fact that it is hiring Hebrew-speaking flight attendants based in Houston is a fairly strong indicator that United is considering a new IAH-TLV route.
(H/T: Max // Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz)
First Seattle to Bangalore, now Dallas to Tel Aviv. United is out for American blood!
Why do DEN and LAX never get any new exciting routes? My two main airports, makes me so sad!
DEN has seen quite a few new long haul international routes over the past few years, DEN-LHR, DEN-FRA, DEN-MUC and starting later this year DEN-LHR goes daily double. United in my opinion is growing its international reach from DEN as it continue to grow the hub domestically, but it will take time.
LAX hasn’t seen a new international flight since the launch and then cancelation of LAX-SIN. I don’t think United will reduce their international footprint at LAX and I think it is possible United could launch some additional LAX-Australia flights in the future as a result of their new partnership with Virgin Australia which for the foreseeable future will be dependent on United to bring in international traffic into Australia to feed parts of their domestic network.
Not to pop the balloon so soon (so to speak), but an insider just emailed me and said IAH-TLV is not under consideration and that FA training begins in Houston, so *all* FA jobs originate there.
So we’ll have to see.
Would be nice, though.
And @Jared, of course LAX would be even better!
I’m not trying to be rude lol, but this shows you did zero research. It’s commonly known that the headquarters for training is listed for FA applications. This goes for AA too
Oh, I did do research…just not the right research.
Having worked in network planing at United, I can tell you for certain that these ads never are correlated with future route announcements.
Did you work under Patrick Quayle’s team or prior to him arriving?
No, the postings are all in Houston because that’s where their jobs offers are for, which is the location of where they will be trained. When applicants are close to finishing training they will be transferred to other bases that need staffing.
For the last two years El Al has flown occasional charter flights between TLV and IAH for Noble Energy/Chevron. So there is definitely some demand from Houston and the oil companies definitely will help fill up the premium classes.