United Airlines will offer an hourly service from Newark to both Washington, DC and London in 2020. While not a formal rebirth of United Shuttle, the new flight schedule hearkens back to days of old.
Andrew Nocella, United’s Chief Commercial Officer, announced the news at yesterday’s Media Day in Chicago.
New Hourly Service From Newark to Washington National
United will offer up to 13 flights per day between Newark and Washington National. United will utilize a combination of its new CRJ-550 and Embraer 175s regional jets. Both aircrafts offer two cabins of service.
- CRJ-550
- 10 seats – United First
- 20 seats – United EconomyPlus
- 20 seats – United Economy
- Embraer 175
- 12 seats – United First
- 32 seats – United EconomyPlus
- 26 seats – United Economy
While United’s new shuttle-like service will not have extra amenities like complimentary beer and wine or front and rear boarding, it will depart hourly, according to Nocella.
Continental used to run a formal shuttle service between National Airport and Newark, so the new routes are a blast from the past.
New Hourly Service From Newark to London Heathrow
United will add a sixth daily flight from Newark to London Heathrow starting in March 2020.
In addition to the 8:30AM morning service that arrives same-day in London, United will offer top of the hour departures at:
- 6:00PM
- 7:00PM
- 8:00PM
- 9:00PM
- 10:00PM
All flights will be operated by United’s new premium-heavy Boeing 767-300.
- Boeing 767-300
- 46 seats – United Polaris (Business Class)
- 22 seats – United Premium Plus (Premium Economy)
- 47 seats – United Economy Plus
- 52 seats – United Economy
The extra slot will not come from Air New Zealand, but Lufthansa. Nocella indicated that the slot was on loan from United’s close Star Alliance and Joint Venture partner.
With the new London Heathrow flight, United will offer a total of 18 daily departures from its six U.S. hubs to LHR. Its three-daily London flights from Chicago O’Hare will also include the premium-heavy 767.
> Read More: United Dramatically Enlarges Business Class Cabin On 767-300
New London Heathrow Marriott Hotel Baggage Delivery Program For Business Class Passengers From Newark
United also announced that business class passengers from Newark will be able to opt-in for free baggage delivery to five Marriott hotels in London as part of United’s expanded relationship with the behemoth hotel chain.
Those include:
- JW Marriott Grosvenor House London
- London Marriott Hotel Canary Wharf
- London Marriott Hotel County Hall
- Sheraton Grand London Park Lane
- St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel London
I’ll have more details on the new London baggage delivery program in a post next week.
CONCLUSION
United’s hourly service from Newark to Washington National and London Heathrow with premium-heavy aircraft will debut next year. Both cities are already well-served from Newark, but United hopes the shuttle-like standardization of flight times will not only provide a more reliable and dependable schedule, but snatch business away from the competition.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call it an “hourly” service to London when it is going from 5x to 6x.
BA/AA jointly ex-JFK can make that claim since they have 12.
FWIW – Polaris Lounge EWR has massively gone downhill in the last year, you can see them already cheapening the food on offer.
Agree about Newark Polaris Lounge, SFO is the best one for me.
Good job on your game show appearance!
Thank you!
Which show? and what episode?
Wow! Between United’s recent efforts towards updating and improving products and schedules geared towards premium flyers, plus Delta’s continued drive to run a very tight ship with modest, but significant enough improvements of its inflight/onboard product geared towards Economy class flyers (seatback IFE for most of its mainline jets; “enhanced” Economy for long-haul international flights, etc.), it’s fascinating to see the different ways United and Delta are seeking to exploit the increasingly inferior product offered by the still in denial that their (brand destroying) business model of simply repeating at much larger American what they did at America West or US Airways featuring dingy, densified, poorly maintained, aircraft cabins; horrible inflight catering; and retrenching from major business markets such as NYC, Boston, or elsewhere to strategic hubs such as Charlotte and Philadelphia (just to cite a few of many problems afflicting American of late) is NOT working.
And why not do everything possible to exploit the ongoing mismanagement and insanity taking place at American, just as Delta has been doing for a while (especially after Bastian took over there), or “better late than never” United has more recently?!?!
Props to both of those clearly much better managed airlines for seeking to maximize the opportunity being handed to them on a silver platter by the Board of Directors at American who continue to bury their heads in the sand keeping the exiting management team in place despite virtually every stakeholder from employees to flyers to even shareholders all long ago having made clear they’re worried that this formerly premier airline is flying off course – way off course – and is in desperate need of a new captain to chart a new flight plan.
Oh, in the above, autocorrect had a “Freudian Slip” when it put “…keeping the exiting management team [at American] in place…”
Of course, that should’ve been “EXISTING” not “exiting”!
But, sure am looking forward to the day when “existing” is replaced by “exiting” management team at American – as change there cannot come soon enough! 😉
There shouldn’t be multiple carbon-belching flights an hour from NYC to DC — this should be a high-speed rail trip, just like Paris-Lyon, Barcelona-Madrid, Milan-Rome. This country is so backwards…
Barcelona-Madrid isn’t really shuttle service and the others aren’t either. You’re right that short distance trips should be train service, but also remember that train infrastructure was built in Europe in a different way than the US. Paris to Lyon is mostly through the countryside, speed and construction is not an issue, the same for Barcelona and Madrid. Milan to Rome (I have taken that before several times) is also a scenic trip but is not shuttle service.
Washington DC to New York is a different animal than all of those logistically.
What do you mean by “front and rear boarding”? Are you saying that back then they used to board planes from both the rear and the front like a flight at a remote stand?
“Hourly” LHR service is a joke. It’s only in the evening. It’s also environmentally wasteful, worse than straws or hotel shampoo bottles. If they cut the 5 evening flights to 4 or even 3, the times are just as convenient.
If I lived in Washington, DC, I would definitely try to fly the daytime flight. A daytime flight to LHR in economy is less tiring than a red eye flight in lie flat business class.
Unless your company pays for the trip who is going spent about $5-6K for round trip business class on a US based airline that offer an interior product.
To increase EWR-DCA frequency to 13 daily (from 8 currently), UA will likely drop CLE-DCA route in order to obtain the DCA slots.
United has 7 domestic hubs, not 6.
You’re right as long as LAX still counts as a hub, I’m not sure it does, certainly not on the level of the others:
– Newark
– Houston
– Chicago
– Washington Dulles
– SFO
– LAX?
– Denver
LAX is still a United hub. That hasn’t changed.
United should first focus on there infrastructure. Out of 7 of my last flights 5 had mechanical problems and twice the flights were canceled.
They have seriously gone downhill. Getting rid of there credit card for flight Miles’s and moving it to another airline. And twice in these 7 flights they broke our luggage. They really need to focuse on good customer service