United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby expects summer transatlantic travel in 2022 to be at the highest level ever. To help meet that anticipated demand, United is adding 1o new transatlantic flights next year and will also commence previously-announced new routes delayed due to the pandemic.
10 New Transatlantic Routes For United Airlines Summer 2022 Season
In a move that United heralds as the “largest transatlantic expansion in its history,” United will add five new international destinations to its route map, including:
- Amman, Jordan
- Bergen, Norway
- Azores, Portugal
- Palma de Mallorca, Spain
- Tenerife, Spain
The move come as United reports a surge in interest in 2022 travel. Let’s explore each new route.
Washington (IAD) – Amman (AMM)
United will begin new capital to capital service between Washington, D.C. and Amman, Jordan starting May 5th. The service will run 3x weekly and be operated by a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
Patrick Quayle, Senior Vice President of International Network and Alliances at United, told Live and Let’s Fly that close-ties between the USA and Jordan as well as untapped tourism potential for the Hashemite Kingdom.
Newark (EWR) – Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal (PDL)
United will add services to the Azores, its third destination in Portugal, from Newark starting on May 13th. The flight will run daily.
This is a short flight, but United will operate a Boeing 737 MAX 8 on it, which will features its United Next interior with the latest mood lighting, high speed internet, and seatback enturinent, but will not have lie-flat beds in business class.
Newark (EWR) – Bergen, Norway (BGO)
United will offer 3x weekly service to Bergen, Norway, a gateway to the fjords. Service begins on May 20, 2022. For this route, United will utilize a Boeing 757-200.
I have family that lives in Bergen and never thought I would see a U.S. carrier service this city of 271,000. I am excited about the new route and would love to take my family to see the Sognefjord and other natural beauty in Norway. I hope that Norway will re-open its borders to foreign travelers by next May!
Newark (EWR) – Palma de Mallorca, Spain (PMI)
3x weekly flights to the Spanish island will be begin on June 2, 2021 utilizing a Boeing 767-300ER. The move complements United’s service to Barcelona and Madrid and marks the only carrier to offer transatlantic service between the USA and Mallorca.
This is a popular island…for Europeans. German is more readily spoken than Spanish and Lufthansa was running Airbus A350-900s and Boeing 747-8s between Germany and PMI this summer. United hopes, despite the greater distance, this island will attract U.S. visitors as well.
Newark (EWR) – Tenerife, Spain (TFN)
In addition to the Balearic Islands, United will commence service to the Canary Islands as well, with new 3x weekly service to Tenerife from Newark. United will use a Boeing 767-300ER on the new route.
I spent a week in August in the neighboring Las Palmas, which was reachable from Tenerife by boat. There’s a lot to like (though do watch out for the volcano in Gran Canaria).
Other New Routes To Existing Cities
In addition to the five brand new destinations, United will also add five additional new flights to cites already served from other hubs. Those include:
- Denver ⇄ Munich – daily
- Chicago ⇄ Milan Malpensa – daily
- Newark ⇄ Dublin – will go double daily
- Newark ⇄ Rome – will go double daily
- Washington ⇄ Berlin – daily
Aircraft type and schedule has not yet been released.
Finally, previously announced flights that were delayed due to the pandemic will run next year:
- Chicago ⇄ Zurich – daily, beginning April 23
- Newark ⇄ Nice – daily, beginning April 29
- Newark ⇄ Frankfurt – second daily beginning April 23
- San Francisco ⇄ Bangalore – daily, beginning May 26
- New Tokyo Haneda Routes – start by March 26th
- Los Angeles
- Newark
- Washington
CONCLUSION
These new routes demonstrate United’s continued shift toward leisure travel but also a bold move to try to create demand in 2022 where it might not currently exist. I was expecting more conventional destinations like LAX-MUC or IAD-ARN and instead Untied announced it will serve Jordan and two Spanish islands. But if United’s forecasts prove to be correct, it stands ready to capture additional market share through a number of innovate new routes.
What are your thoughts on Untied’s new transatlantic routes? Which route would you like to try?
Such little love for Chicago… disappointing. I was really hoping to see more flights to SE Europe from Chicago on US. There’s a huge Greek and Balkan community in greater Chicago. ORD flights to ATH or ZAG seem like a slam dunk, especially as passengers could connect on Aegean or Croatia, as Star Alliance partners, to smaller cities, islands, etc.
I’ve been waiting for the BOS-LHR to take flight – thought seeing “Arsenal” would be the clue that this route would finally commence…sigh.
Thanks for the update Matthew!
Any idea when the flights go on sale? I find the IAD-AMM one particularly interesting…can’t believe United beat RJ to it
Washington (IAD) – Amman (AMM) interesting addition. Unfortunately the government contract fare between DC and AMM is with AA for the rest of this fiscal year, to 9/30/2022. I don’t know how much government traffic there is between DC and AMM but it would have been nice if UA could have cashed in on that.
Fun fact: Northwest Orient was awarded rights to Bergen in the late 70’s/early 80’s but to the best of my knowledge, never commenced service. But Bergen did appear on the NW route map albeit briefly.
Is the PDL flight considered “Polaris” when taking into account lounge access? And will it have have the Polaris soft product inboard despite no lie-flats?
Thanks
I’ve asked UA. Will report back.
Am a Canadian currently in the tourist area of southern Tenerife, sitting by a hotel pool under a shady palm tree. Desert-like eternal summer, the north is greener, and rainier. Columbus slept here. The Spanish ended the war against the Indigenous Guanches in 1496 by winning a battle.
Mass tourism has discovered this island decades ago. Think a pleasant, predictable, very clean Waikiki. No obvious homelessness, little if any litter. Food is good, may be a bit bland for those of us from the New World. Much of the produce is grown in the Canaries. Bananas are cultivated for export.
Tenerife is 2 islands over from the island of La Palma. That’s where the volcano is erupting. Think Big Island eruptions and how little effect they have on other parts of Hawai’i. No signs of anything here. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is the co capital with Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Population of the island of Tenerife is 1 million. 20 new Covid cases a day, average over past 7 days. Close to 90% of locals vaccinated. Tourists are let onto the island if vaccinated. Hotels welcome only vaccinated travellers.
Nice place for a quiet holiday!
Will the flight to the Azores even be marketed as business class or as premium economy like AA and DL do?
Good question – I will find out.
Did a search and the UA website has them listed as Polaris Business with only C fares available at 11K round tip from IAH
Not paying that for a recliner
That has to be a mistake
Finally some love for Berlin. I am here now and it takes a week to explore. Great city. Great day trips to Potsdam and other places. How is there such limited service?? No idea
Is it TFS or TFN that they will fly to?
TFS
Just looked at both PMI and TFN out of EWR in June and July and for PMI they only had Economy awards and for TFN there was nothing on the direct flights. Nice announcement but more hype than it was worth if you want to actually fly on an award tieket. Will see if they load more but right now this looks like a bust.
Seems United has forgotten about it’s IAH (Houston, former Continental stronghold) base. Only two Europe
destinations. Sad indeed.
Makes sense though. IAH as connectivity to Europe is limited in scope as it basically cuts out half the country using it as a transfer spot. While some from, say, Tampa, might backtrack if they absolutely had to, connecting in Dulles or EWR is far better. Each of those can capture travelers from the entire country.
I count long-term European destinations from IAH as four: LHR, FRA, MUC, AMS.
Is London LHR going to resume from LAX or DEN?
Super disappointing that LAX didn’t get any new routes.
Any idea when the AMM flight will go on sale? Just checked and it wasn’t available yet.
Also I doubt BOS-LHR will really happen I think it was just an announcement to show they’re pissed at JetBlue.
Any thought as to how United will shape it’s currently scheduled services to Europe in summer 2022, especially to smaller cities? Feels like they will continue massaging and shifting their trans-Atlantic service over the next few months, as they get a better sense of demand. Thinking of routes like IAD-GVA, which operated daily in spring/summer (and possibly the rest of the year?) pre-covid, but hasn’t been restarted yet, understandably. Looks like it is scheduled to run 4x weekly starting in mid-December, and then go to daily in late March. EWR-GVA appears to be restarting at the end of October at 4x weekly.
Just wondering if a destination like GVA, which seems to be a sort of mix of leisure and business traffic, but isn’t a partner hub like BRU or ZRH, will really see enough demand to make United comfortable with 2x daily service this summer, counting both IAD/EWR.
But I will say that the addition of IAD-BER service makes me think a route like IAD-GVA will stay intact. They wouldn’t proactively add daily IAD-BER service unless they felt quite positive about summer 2022 bookings on a route like that, which again has a sister route to EWR. From afar, BER and GVA seem to have certain similarities, with a mix of business and leisure traffic, not a partner hub, although BER obviously a larger overall population, balanced by the $ in/around GVA.
Of course PA served the Canaries back in the day, I think from Metro New York, so I would imagine there is demand. PMI seems like an odd choice, as I’m not sure who would choose that as a European sun destination over so many other places.
Hopefully we’ll see some good J fares to AMM (especially ex-ORD) since they’re competing with RJ.
Disappointed no cool E Asia or Africa routes announced.
Given this bounty of new flights, what exactly is getting cut to make space? Airlines somehow always neglect to mention what existing services are getting wiped.
Three routes being cut: SFO-DUB, EWR-MAN, EWR-GLA.
Thanks. Good to know that United didn’t hide the cuts. Looks like my cynicism was unwarranted in this case.
This aerospace engineer ain’t flying no “Max” over an open ocean…ETOPs or no ETOPs.
Interesting routes, but for the puzzle people I was hoping United would release a list of the clues and explanations. Do you know if that information was published anywhere?
Here you go:
Thank you, I appreciate that.
I think you got the date wrong for the Portugal flight…
When direct ewR to pRG?
Where are the flights to popular destinations like Florida from Spain.