United Airlines just shared its June international schedule internally, which includes the suspension of more European routes and a cautious resumption of others. United also hopes to return to Mainland China.
What Additional Flights Is United Airlines Cutting?
United Airlines is suspending service to several additional international stations, including Berlin, Geneva, Athens, Rome, Milan, and Melbourne. It is also cutting back frequencies on other routes. All of this totals 20 additional route cuts:
| Removals For Full Summer Season (through October 23, 2020) |
||
| Atlantic | Pacific | Latin |
| EWR-TXL EWR-GVA IAD-GVA EWR-ATH EWR-FCO EWR-MXP SFO-LHR 930/900 IAD-LHR 122/123 IAD-LHR 924/925 EWR-TLV 84/85 ORD-AMS IAD-CDG |
SFO-MEL LAX-MEL SFO-KIX IAH-SYD LAX-NRT IAD-HND GUM-FUK |
ORD-GRU |
| Removals Through September 7, 2020 | |
| Atlantic | Pacific |
| EWR-BOM ORD-LHR 958/929 ORD-LHR 938/959 EWR-LHR 110/883 EWR-LHR 904/905 EWR-LHR 940/921 |
SFO-AKL LAX-SYD LAX-HND IAH-NRT LAX-PVG ORD-PVG ORD-PEK HNL-NRT GUM-KIX |
This is on top of all the route cuts I reported last week.
> Read More: United Airlines Announces 13 Additional International Route Suspensions
United Airlines International Schedule For June 2020
This is United’s tentative schedule for June 2020:
| Atlantic | ||
| Chicago | London | Daily |
| New York/Newark | Amsterdam | Daily |
| Frankfurt | Daily | |
| London | Daily | |
| Paris | 3x/week | |
| Tel Aviv | Daily | |
| Washington – Dulles | Frankfurt | Daily |
| San Francisco | Frankfurt | 3x/week |
| Pacific | ||
| New York/Newark | Tokyo-Narita | 3x/week |
| San Francisco | Sydney | Daily |
| Tokyo – Narita | Daily | |
| Latin America | ||
| Mexico | ||
| Houston | Guadalajara | Daily |
| Leon | Daily | |
| México City | 2x/Day | |
| Monterrey | Daily | |
| Cancun | Daily | |
| Puerto Vallarta | Daily | |
| Los Cabos | Daily | |
| Caribbean | ||
| Houston | San Juan | Daily |
| St. Thomas | 3x/week | |
| Central America | ||
| Houston | Guatemala City | Daily |
| San Jose | Daily | |
| San Salvador | Daily | |
| Tegucigalpa | Daily | |
| Managua | 4x/week | |
| San Pedro Sula | 3x/week | |
| South America | ||
| Houston | Sao Paulo | Daily |
Flights to Mainland China remain in the schedule as well, though United is not sure it will be able to operate them.
“We will also retain four China routes in the June schedule – SFO-PVG (Shanghai), SFO-PEK (Beijing), SFO-CTU (Chengdu) and EWR-PVG – while we continue to evaluate the feasibility of restarting passenger service to China.”
Thus, if you are scheduled to fly to China on United in June, you won’t see any schedule change or cancellation yet.
CONCLUSION
United still expects load factors to be down by 90% in June, so the schedule seems almost cautiously optimistic on that basis. Hopefully the loss of several of these stations is not permanent.
I’m a bit surprised Athens is off the board for this summer. Greece has done surprisingly well with COVID management and the country was hoping to open up some tourism for the late summer…perhaps it’s more about us than them.
Greece may have done well but the U.S. hasn’t. Even if the U.S. removes the travel ban, foreign countries may not accept any U.S. citizens for a while. I would consider international travel off the tables until that curve shows considerable decline. With the restlessness of this country, it may be a long time until that happens.
Would like to find the UA domestic EWR routes for May & June,
Chinese gov’t isn’t allowing pax in the country, correct?
Going forward, the 220 countries on the planet have their own restrictions. It’s a hotch potch, a matrix that travelers will have to become familiar with, and these can and do change by the day, week. IATA website has a master list by country regarding restrictions.
As the cases of COVID-19 continues to grow in the U.S., it is indeed going to be hard for countries to lift restrictions on people entering from the U.S. My own guess is that the rest of the 2020 travel year overall is going to be a big bust. The list of airlines increasing flights will grow, but whether pax loads follow is very questionable.
Like Matthew said re: this article, United is being optimistic.
I for one will stay domestic U.S. and travel by car this late summer, unless things stay bad or get worse.
The only reason why these routes are showing up in the reservation systems is to test demand. There is no plan to actually operate these routes any time soon. Given the current demand trends, I am skeptical any international flying will be done by US carriers until 2021.
Keep in mind business flying is almost zero as all companies trying to cut expenses and want employees to fly as little as possible due to liability. This won’t change until a vaccine is found AND given to the bulk of the population.
Well, this is kind of ignorant, as there is ongoing int’l flying by the US3 as we speak
Well that’s kind of ignorant as those are only for cargo and repatriation
Is there really that much traffic right now to Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America? I am sure there must be a reason behind all of these flights.
Hard to believe sfo-lhr is toast. I guess they will cede this route to BA until traffic picks up.
When would United be going to Trinidad and Tobago
United just keeps making it harder for my wife and I to visit her family in England once we get her green card. It used to be a nice 1-stop flight to Newark with an extended layover and then off to Manchester. Now it looks like it will have to be a 2 stop through Germany :/. I’d like to get a flight through Turkey and we could position somewhere they flew, but using miles on United just got more expensive too. Do you know how easy it is to use Avianca miles for Turkish? I bought the whole lot last year and I’m sitting on almost 500K.