a white airplane on a runway
United 787-9

United Announces 7 International Routes From San Francisco (SFO) Starting 2019

United just announced a bunch of new international routes and frequencies that will be starting from San Francisco in 2019. United has ambitions to launch a total of 35 new routes in 2019. That breaks down into 27 domestic routes and 8 international routes. San Francisco is already a major United hub with over 300+ daily flights during peak season, so it makes sense that they would be adding flights from there.

The New Routes

  • Melbourne – MEL – (daily)
  • New Delhi – DEL- (daily)
  • Toronto – YYZ – (twice daily)
  • Amsterdam – AMS – (daily)
  • Seoul Incheon – ICN – (now 2x daily)
  • Auckland – AKL – (now year round, rather than seasonally)
  • Tahiti – PPT (now year round, rather than seasonally)

a map of the world with red lines

New flights are great but most of these changes were already known before this “historic” announcement. The interesting flights to note are to Melbourne, Australia and New Delhi, India. United does operate to Melbourne from Los Angeles (LAX) but this flight seems to compete directly with Qantas service that started earlier this year between the 2 cities.  The new flight to New Delhi, India is interesting as it raises the question as to whether the 3 big middle eastern airlines really heavily affected growth for US airlines into India. This is United’s second flight to New Delhi, the other flight departs from Newark (EWR)

United had detailed the routes below:

Flight From To Frequency Depart* Arrive* Aircraft
UA104 San Francisco New Delhi Daily 7:15 p.m. 12:45 a.m. +2 days 787-9
UA105 New Delhi San Francisco Daily 4:00 a.m. 6:10 a.m. 787-9
UA060 San Francisco Melbourne Tue/Thur/Sat 10:50 p.m. 9:40 a.m. +2 days 787-9
UA061 Melbourne San Francisco Mon/Thur/Sat 11:40 a.m. 6:50 a.m. 787-9
UA805 San Francisco Seoul Mon/Tue/Thur/Sat 4:55 p.m. 9:35 p.m. +1 day 777-200ER
UA806 Seoul San Francisco Mon/Wed/Thur/Sat 11:25 a.m. 6:10 a.m. 777-200ER
UA565 San Francisco Toronto Twice daily 10:25 a.m. 6:30 p.m. 737-800
11:00 p.m. 7:00 a.m+1 day
UA459 Toronto San Francisco Twice daily 7:15 a.m. 9:54 a.m. 737-800
7:21 p.m. 9:55 p.m
UA968 San Francisco Amsterdam Daily 2:55 p.m 10:20 a.m+1 day 787-9
UA969 Amsterdam San Francisco Daily 2:50 p.m 4:50 p.m. 787-9
UA917 San Francisco Auckland Tue/Thur/Sat 11:10 p.m. 7:20 a.m. 777-200ER
UA916 Auckland San Francisco Mon/Thur/Sat 2:30 p.m. 6:40 a.m. 777-200ER
UA917 San Francisco Pape’ete Tue/Thur/Sat 1:15 p.m. 6:55 p.m. 787-8
UA916 Pape’ete San Francisco Tue/Thur/Sat 9:15 p.m. 8:25 a.m+1 day 787-8

(H/T @AirlineFlyer)

Are you excited to fly one of these new routes?