A bit over a week ago, United Airlines announced an international expansion (after teasing it on social media). I wanted to post a quick update, as two of the three new routes are now bookable, including the most exciting new route.
In this post:
United adds Newark to Marrakesh route
As of October 24, 2024, United will launch a 3x weekly winter seasonal flight between Newark (EWR) and Marrakesh (RAK) in Morocco. The flight will operate with the following schedule:
UA628 Newark to Marrakesh departing 9:45PM arriving 10:20AM (+1 day)
UA627 Marrakesh to Newark departing 12:20PM arriving 4:25PM
The 3,664-mile route is blocked at 8hr35min eastbound (Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays) and 8hr5min westbound (Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays). It will be operated by a Boeing 767-300ER, featuring 46 Polaris (business class) seats, 22 Premium Plus (premium economy) seats, 43 Economy Plus (extra legroom economy) seats, and 56 economy seats.
United will become the first US airline to fly to Morocco, and for that matter, will be one of the only airlines to fly across the Atlantic directly to Marrakesh. Air Transat is also launching a seasonal service to there from Montreal as of June 2024.
Currently most of the transatlantic capacity to Morocco is on oneworld member Royal Air Maroc, though the airline routes most of its traffic through Casablanca (CMN), even though that’s not the tourist hotspot.
United has a pretty awesome network to Africa, as the airline flies to Accra (ACC), Cape Town (CPT), Johannesburg (JNB), and Lagos (LOS), in addition to this new route. If nothing else, this is a great use of an aircraft in winter, when demand to Europe is otherwise a bit lighter.
United adds Tokyo Narita to Cebu route
As of July 31, 2024, United will launch daily year-round nonstop flights between Tokyo (NRT) and Cebu (CEB) in the Philippines. The flight will operate with the following schedule:
UA32 Tokyo to Cebu departing 5:25PM arriving 9:35PM
UA33 Cebu to Tokyo departing 9:15AM arriving 3:20PM
The 2,033-mile route is blocked at 5hr10min southbound and 5hr5min northbound. It will be operated by a Boeing 737-800. In addition to serving the point to point market, this will offer easy access to Cebu for those connecting from the United States on United.
As far as service to the Philippines goes, this complements United’s service from San Francisco (SFO), Guam (GUM), and Palau (ROR), to Manila (MNL).
United adds Houston to Medellin route
As of October 27, 2024, United will launch daily year-round nonstop flights between Houston (IAH) and Medellin (MDE) in Colombia. The 2,090-mile route will be operated by a Boeing 737 MAX 8. This expands United’s presence in Colombia, complementing existing service from Houston and Newark to Bogota.
American is currently the only one of the “big three” US airlines flying to Medellin, so United is following American here, for once (though JetBlue and Spirit also fly there). With two of the three carriers now flying to Medellin, I’m curious if Delta adds service as well.
Bottom line
United Airlines will be adding three new international routes, the most interesting of which is a new winter seasonal service between Newark and Marrakesh. It’s awesome that there will finally be a US airline flying nonstop to Morocco, and it’s cool that this service is to Marrakesh rather than Casablanca.
United’s international network is simply unrivaled among the “big three” US carriers, and this is yet another example of that.
What do you make of United’s latest international expansion?
A few years ago, AA announced service between JFK and Morocco. It never commenced. Incredibly disappointing. When I see AA start a route, I'd never book it because I don't know if it will actually fly.
It was PHL to Casablanca, Morocco and it was canceled because of COVID-19, when nearly every airline canceled all kinds of routes. It had nothing to do with AA.
Great news and a wonderful addition to their large international route network and also a great city to visit
Or simply take their non stop to Manila and skip Tokyo altogether. Short flight to CEB.
Then you increase your crew costs, while losing 5th Freedom rights.
Why would they do that?
I knew at one point American was looking into flying to Casablanca. Nice to see United take the initiative here.
ABC News is airing a teaser video right now of a UA 777 losing a tire on departure from SFO to Japan. Story in minutes
Video is already widely available. 777-200ER on the way to Kansai loses a tire as it's retracting. Hit a car.
according to the video, lots of cars. In the employee lot.
So, UA announced new routes today, the NTSB said it is investigating an incident involving pilot reported unresponsiveness of the rubber on a UA 737MAX 8, and there is video of a UA 777 losing a tire on takeoff with video from a UA 737 (not MAX) engine fire apparently to/from IAH.
and somewhere in all of that, UA announced it was halting pilot hiring.
UA did get all of the news coverage today
Yeah this is completely relevant to the story of new routes and doesn’t make you seem bitter at all.
It's United news day.
All of it.
Tell ABC News and the NTSB that they should not have rained on the RAK and CEB route announcements.
Lol@Mark
Why is Tim Dunn posting that? United made a bull's eye by hitting a car. Delta did not. United wins!
Delta used to fly ATL-MDE, it didn't last long, I don't think there's a market for Delta in MDE. Houston is very welcome, and a very needed destination, I'm sure it will stand the test of time since there's a decent colombian community in Texas to fill that plane year round. I hope we'll see United returning to CLO one day or launching more destinations from EWR.
United has also just told its pilots that it will stop hiring due to Boeing production delays
Ummm I think your comment should read “pausing for two or three months before resuming”. See how the full context makes it sound different?
Again, completely relevant and doesn’t make you sound bitter.
UA should bring back the NRT hub.
Because ______ ?
I was intrigued by the addition of NRT-CEB route. May be there is a need from NRT to Cebu but for passengers from IAH-CEB, EVA air is way better both in terms of connection and the cost (Half the cost in business class, irrespective of the season, according to the United website).
I flew ATL-MDE in 2016 when DL tried service to both MDE and CTG for a bit. I split time between MDE and CTG on that trip, and I'm kind of happy/sad that both have gotten so popular. Medellin, in particular, is filled with so many great people who are eager to show their city as it is today.
Glad to see UA adding service there!
Yes they were lost in the press release but those extra additions and frequencies (LAX-HKG going double daily! UA starting LAX-PVG before DL does) are almost as interesting as the new destinations.
UA really putting their huge widebody fleet and new 787 deliveries later this year to good use.
Correct me if i'm wrong here, but wouldn't a premium heavy A350-900 do the EWR-HKG trek bypassing the the russian airspace? Cathay must be making a kill with direct flights to JFK.
CX has flown JFK-HKG while respecting Russian airspace embargoes but currently does not.
Based on Airbus performance data as well as actual usage by other A350 operators, it is possible for the most advanced A350-900s to fly NYC-HKG and carry at least 225 passengers or for the A350-1000 to carry between 275 and 300 passengers and avoid Russian airspace. The most restrictive capacity is in the winter so summer loads would be higher.
Your comments are always informative dear Tim Dunn.
Narita-Cebu surprised me as it would be the first 5th freedom route beyond Japan for United since they terminated NRT-ICN in 2017. I hope United add more capacity from Narita to Asia to complement decreasing ANA flights from Narita and open Polaris lounge in Narita after LHR.
It's the opposite of what Delta did, dismantling their NRT hub. Interestingly, United does actually have a JV partner in ANA for onward connectivity, whereas Delta did not.
as has been discussed multiple times and shouldn't need to be repeated but since you decided to bring Delta into the conversation, Delta moved its intra-Asia connections to Seoul in partnership with Korean Air which operates ICN-CEB, a route that is very competitive with multiple carriers so there is clearly a strong local market from S. Korea just as there is from Japan.
Delta DID have its own hub at NRT but moved its Tokyo-US...
as has been discussed multiple times and shouldn't need to be repeated but since you decided to bring Delta into the conversation, Delta moved its intra-Asia connections to Seoul in partnership with Korean Air which operates ICN-CEB, a route that is very competitive with multiple carriers so there is clearly a strong local market from S. Korea just as there is from Japan.
Delta DID have its own hub at NRT but moved its Tokyo-US flights to HND because it deemed the local Tokyo market is best served from HND and even UA's recent moves show that NRT is increasingly becoming a connecting hub rather than an airport that is well suited for the local market. Just as is true in the US, hubs can exist in many places. DL hubs at ICN with KE; AA and UA do it at NRT.
Delta is partnered with Korean hence moved to Seoul as a hub. Korean operates to Cebu Mactan, which is actually a very nice efficient airport. The complete opposite of Manila.
According to CNBC, "United also said it will offer four weekly flights between Shanghai and Los Angeles starting Aug. 29."
Also adding second LAX-HKG and SFO-ICN flights, in additional to that.
Holy crap, a UA fifth freedom route from NRT! That I was not expecting at all! Is it 2005 again???
AA pre-COVID was planning on flying PHL-CMN. Too bad that didn't happen. Would like to see AA fly to Africa.
Great news
Marrakesh nonstop from US! Do ANA, Aeroplan and/or Avianca consider North Africa within their "Europe" region?
It doesn't matter for Aeroplan. Europe and Africa are one zone.
Aeroplan blocks United J when it competes with dynamic AC flights anyway so it's a moot point.
Since I was once again mentioned before I have read the post, the real question is whether each of these will make money.
And the obvious question is whether all of these routes are really peak winter routes, esp. RAK. CEB to NRT is an example of lots that you can do in Asia if you use a narrowbody aircraft. Presumably these are GUM based pilots?
Doubling down on LAX-HKG seems to indicate not only...
Since I was once again mentioned before I have read the post, the real question is whether each of these will make money.
And the obvious question is whether all of these routes are really peak winter routes, esp. RAK. CEB to NRT is an example of lots that you can do in Asia if you use a narrowbody aircraft. Presumably these are GUM based pilots?
Doubling down on LAX-HKG seems to indicate not only that there is sufficient demand for HKG from the US even in the winter; the question is why UA can do but AA as part of oneworld can't or wont - maybe this is pre-emptive.
LAX-PVG is what I said UA would do to grow its China routes; PEK is actually a longer flight from the same point in the US than PVG and PVG is, of course, the business center. It seems that DL will now need to get busy and start its LAX-PVG route.
and it also highlights that UA's Pacific operation will be from the west coast which continues to leave opportunity for DL from the eastern US including DTW-PVG and DTW-PEK if they choose to restart PEK. and the newest A350s can do NYC-HKG even w/ Russian airspace closures so apparently UA recognizes the 787 can't do it.
Adding another Seoul flight helps DL and KE prove that there is sufficient competition to approve the OZ merger and UA apparently has been able to find a slot.
Creative uses of airplanes in the winter but the proof will be whether UA's international system profitability improves.
DOT data through the 3rd quarter of 2023 - the latest released - shows that DL's international system is more profitable than UA's.
Monsieur Tim, NOBODY asked you for your DOT DL & CO Data. It is sooo irrelevant as always
it is whenever people fawn all over a company's product and then tell us how superior they are.
Tell us where in UA's corporate charter and bylaws there is any mention about having the most dots and lines on a route map.
They don't exist.
Good for UA for acting like Pan Am. Neither were the best at achieving the reasons for which they exist(ed).
Tim, you're the only one fawning over an airline and telling us how superior it is. No one else is.
you and a whole lot of people can define "superior" or "best" lots of different ways.
I am simply accurately noting that UA flies the most widebody aircraft on the most international ASMs and gets the most international revenue of US airlines.
But there are other airlines that do a better job of attaining to one or more metric WRT to international than UA.
UA has distinctives as do other carriers.
This isn't a site looking at the Aviation industry from a financial lens. We're not here to read through what airlines are the best to invest in.
It's about travel and as a traveler I'm happy to see airlines like United be creative with routes on their own metal to a degree that DL/AA have not.
DL is a more profitable airline. Fine.
These moves may blow up in UAs face if there's another...
This isn't a site looking at the Aviation industry from a financial lens. We're not here to read through what airlines are the best to invest in.
It's about travel and as a traveler I'm happy to see airlines like United be creative with routes on their own metal to a degree that DL/AA have not.
DL is a more profitable airline. Fine.
These moves may blow up in UAs face if there's another economic downturn. Great.
For the moment, as people who come to this site generally to follow trends from a traveler perspective (and not an industry analyst perspective) there's really no reason to immediately link changes to what impact it will have for UAs bottom line.
I'm here to learn and better understand. Looking at things through the financial lens matters because if an airline or route isn't cutting it financially, they're aviation history.
LAX-PEK is shorter than LAX-PVG.
if you look at flights from PVG and PEK from the same US city that respect Russia airspace embargoes, the PEK flight time in the air take longer than the PVG flights. See UA SFO-PVG vs SFO-PEK
That's never really been an issue for the A350-1000, which CX already has, so not sure why enhanced A350-900 capabilities would make a difference to them.
If you meant that in the context of DL, then not really sure why that'd be a factor either; as they've never been able to gain...
That's never really been an issue for the A350-1000, which CX already has, so not sure why enhanced A350-900 capabilities would make a difference to them.
If you meant that in the context of DL, then not really sure why that'd be a factor either; as they've never been able to gain a foothold in the HKG market, despite having attempted it from five different gateways.
Doubt they have an appetite for trying a 6th, especially with an artificial airspace restriction in their way.
early generation A350-1000s could not be in the air for 17.5 hours - which is what JFK-HKG respecting Russia airspace restrictions - takes carrying 325 or more passengers.
I have no idea what DL will do but there is a laundry list of routes to Asia that UA has dropped because of the limited capabilities of the 787.
The A350 in either version can do those routes and both models have capabilities that are...
early generation A350-1000s could not be in the air for 17.5 hours - which is what JFK-HKG respecting Russia airspace restrictions - takes carrying 325 or more passengers.
I have no idea what DL will do but there is a laundry list of routes to Asia that UA has dropped because of the limited capabilities of the 787.
The A350 in either version can do those routes and both models have capabilities that are much more advanced than the majority of the A350s in the fleets of CX and other airlines.
How do you figure either such claim?
Even an 1980s-style routing from NYC to HKG via a redispatch over ANC, would "only" add about ~300ish nautical miles to the routing, still making it around the same nautical distance as SFO-SIN, and likely shorter flight time due to the more northerly...
How do you figure either such claim?
Even an 1980s-style routing from NYC to HKG via a redispatch over ANC, would "only" add about ~300ish nautical miles to the routing, still making it around the same nautical distance as SFO-SIN, and likely shorter flight time due to the more northerly component.
And a 316tonne A35K wouldn't have had any difficulty doing that, which CX has had in their fleet since 2018. In fact, when they launched HKG-IAD, they'd sometimes face similar flight times and distances, when there was strong weather to their west during departure.
Given the focus on the Pacific here, the apples to apples comparison of profitability shows that UA is at 10.3% vs DL at 10.7% net income margin on operating revenue (thru Q3 2023). 0.4% difference in margin is commendable, but arguably UA is more impressive for maintaining similarly high margins as Delta on twice the revenue in more competitive markets.
If you look at all of UA's key Pacific markets served out of SFO...
Given the focus on the Pacific here, the apples to apples comparison of profitability shows that UA is at 10.3% vs DL at 10.7% net income margin on operating revenue (thru Q3 2023). 0.4% difference in margin is commendable, but arguably UA is more impressive for maintaining similarly high margins as Delta on twice the revenue in more competitive markets.
If you look at all of UA's key Pacific markets served out of SFO and LAX, there isn't a single one where UA doesn't have impressive competitors. For Japan, that's JL, in Taiwan that's CI and BR (despite being an alliance partner, the lack of a JV means they do also compete on some level), in Korea that's KE and OZ (same deal as BR), for Australia/NZ that's QF, HKG is CX, and mainland China is CA / CZ / MU (competing more so on price than product quality, but still).
Meanwhile, the DL/KE JV is the only carrier in many markets between ICN and the US, including ATL, ORD, DTW, BOS, MSP, and IAD (possibly more?). DL is also the only carrier on routes like DTW/MSP/ATL - HND. With the lack of competition, it would be pretty amazing if DL DIDNT outperform UA on margins. The question becomes
1. Where can DL expand in the Pacific that doesn't put them up against stiff competition, between UA and international carriers? See the list above.
2. Can they maintain these impressive margins once they are forced to compete more directly?
Of course, UA is also advantaged with its NH and NZ JVs, but outside of secondary cities like HOU and DEN, there are very few routes where these JVs are the ONLY carriers on those routes. Certainly, the bulk of UA's revenue and profits here are from routes where they face a great deal of competition - and are able to prevail.
Must say very impressive. UA always know how to play this game. Like to also see the expansion to the Pacific region from LAX, SFO and NRT. Keeping the competition behind. Patrick Quayle is simply a genius, best in the industry!!
For now.
Like many here, I'm far more excited about longhaul international launches like this, than run-of-the-mill domestic and regional adds...
...*but* that comes with the recognition that UA seems quite a bit more exposed to the shocks in longhaul travel that come about every 5-10yrs, some more regional than others.
What happens when the next one inevitably arises; how do they react in a way that doesn't cripple their model? Hope they have a plan.
thank you. And United's massive fleet spending is far larger than AA did which is part of the reason for that company's financial woes.
Pan Am also took great pride that it flew to every corner of the world.
B6 MDE
Also, and i kind of find this very interesting, they're adding a second daily flight from LAX to HKG. That's very impressive. Also a second SFO-Seoul/ICN, and returning to LAX-PVG. All very impressive, in addition to the creativity here.
It is impressive if they can generate yield to justify the cost. It might be more profitable for UAL to fly some boring routes that are high yielding instead. I can see the China flights being lucrative to UAL.
We will see. I'm just amazed that they see the opportunity for a second on LAXHKG. TBD how it does.
It's wild, how badly Cathay has languished, while its Taiwanese competitors just across the strait expand like wildfire.
United is clearly taking advantage of both that, and of Delta's inexplicable inability to ever gain a foothold in the HKG market, despite having attempted it nonstop from LAX, ANC, DTW, NRT, and SEA.
Delta is simply in the early stages of building its route system from the US nonstop to Asia.
The NRT hub days are over, DL has decided for now that they have enough service to Tokyo, and are adding flights to Seoul ICN as part of the KE joint venture.
DL had enough planes by number to replace the 777s that were retired but the A350s and A330s they had then did not...
Delta is simply in the early stages of building its route system from the US nonstop to Asia.
The NRT hub days are over, DL has decided for now that they have enough service to Tokyo, and are adding flights to Seoul ICN as part of the KE joint venture.
DL had enough planes by number to replace the 777s that were retired but the A350s and A330s they had then did not have the same capabilities of the 777LR and DL has had no real transpacific growth capacity.
That all starts changing in a couple months as Delta takes delivery of the first of 36 new A350-900s and 1000s, all of which will be far more capable not just of anything DL has operated but also more capable and efficient than any of what AA or UA operates. They also still have a dozen A330-900s on order and use that plane for some routes like the new SEA-TPE route (which was incidentally retimed to require an additional airplane which might explain why LAX-LHR was given back to VS).
How DL chooses to use that fleet remains to be seen but I am as certain as the day is long that DL is not taking delivery of 4 dozen new TPAC capable aircraft to fly them all to Europe.
As someone who flies to HKG and the region fairly often, and is primarily a DL/SkyTeam flyer... I'd love to see it. But unfortunately, I'll believe it when I see it.
DL's just struggled so much to HKG, despite their attempts. I'm not sure if they've had a mainland48 to HKG route ever make it to 5yrs.
Astonishing, when UA has a powerful hub that's proverbially right up the street, but can make 2x LAX-HKG...
As someone who flies to HKG and the region fairly often, and is primarily a DL/SkyTeam flyer... I'd love to see it. But unfortunately, I'll believe it when I see it.
DL's just struggled so much to HKG, despite their attempts. I'm not sure if they've had a mainland48 to HKG route ever make it to 5yrs.
Astonishing, when UA has a powerful hub that's proverbially right up the street, but can make 2x LAX-HKG work!
I've heard rumors that this was done, so that DL can 1stop hop across the strait with full 5th freedom rights to HKG.... but seems a bit on the far fetched side, since they can just codeshare. Will definitely add that to the believe-when-seen list. :(
Cathay is a shell of its former self, but is still probably more than capable of running Delta out of Hong Kong, again. That doesn't seem to take much, it's weird how much they've struggled in such a major global market. Would be like not being able to make London or Paris work.
United is a different story though. Cathay didn't react to United's first resumption of LAX to Hong Kong, and it will be very telling if they don't react to its additional frequency.
“American is currently the only US airline flying to Medellin” // JetBlue and Spirit both do.
Sloppy writing by Ben as always. At least his articles aren't littered with typos like Matthew Klint though.
I don't understand how Ben and Matt can't create a partnership where they proofread each other's work. Or use Grammarly -- even their free version is pretty good at catching typos.
Otherwise, draft in Word, fix the swiggly lines that mark grammar and spelling errors, and then paste into your blogging software.
Or even better, use LanguageTool: https://languagetool.org/
Popping the popcorn for the impending Tim Dunn™️ rant!
He's already active on live and let's fly. Calling United desperate. But at the same time leaving just enough wiggle room so that if it's successful and Delta decides to hop on board he'll be able to claim somehow that Delta was great too.
the joy of the internet is that you get people that are happy to mock others anonymously and even using false identities.
Don't believe everything you read.
"Don't believe everything you read." Especially if you're the one writing it.
as I noted on that site - which the operator posted - the person that wrote that post could not produce an ID with the name they used if their life depended on it.
There are people that are so desperate to get rid of a counter opinion that they will mock and use someone else's name.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given that there is deep fake AI-generated impersonating everyone including the President and Taylor Swift.
TD has a higher word count than Ben on any post when the trigger word is mentioned.
Maybe if people ignore him, he'll rant himself to sleep and then hopefully stop finding a way to make everything about DL