Looks like it is time to schedule a trip to Houston. United Airlines announced in an internal memo yesterday the routes they will be flying with their first Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. While the Denver-Tokyo route was the first to be loaded into the system for sale it won’t be the first operated. The plane will visit a number of other destinations in the coming months. Here’s what was written in the United Daily briefing:
The places we’ll go on our 787s
Amsterdam, Tokyo, Lagos, London and Shanghai are the first international cities we’ll serve with the newest addition to our fleet, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This weekend, we’re loading the 787 into our schedule for the following routes:
• IAH to AMS (Amsterdam) between Dec. 4 and March 29, 2013
• Daily service between LAX and NRT, beginning Jan. 3, 2013
• IAH to LOS (Lagos, Nigeria), five days a week, beginning Jan. 7, 2013
• IAH to LHR (London Heathrow) between Feb. 4 and March 29, 2013
• Daily service between LAX and PVG (Shanghai), beginning March 30, 2013
The 787 will replace other aircraft types on each of these existing routes and will be reflected in our published schedules starting on Saturday.
The previously announced new service between DEN and NRT, which starts March 31, 2013, is already out for sale.
“The 787 is the right aircraft for these routes because of its many passenger-friendly amenities and superior operating economics,” Network SVP Greg Hart said. “With 50 787s on order, we look forward to the many new route opportunities that we will be able to offer to our customers in the future.”
As a mid-size aircraft with a long range, the 787 offers about the same capacity as a Boeing 767 but it can travel as far as the larger Boeing 777-200ERs. We will leverage the 787’s fuel efficiency and environmental advantages to serve markets that can’t support larger aircraft.
We will soon announce plans for 787 domestic flying, which will precede international flights.
No surprises here at all. The routes announced are in line with previous statements and rumors. still, nice to see it official. Bookings should open on August 25 for all these flights.
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More proof that the merged airline is more Continental than United.
Yes, the first routes are out of Houston. So is the first crew base. That’s because these are planes which were originally ordered by Continental and their pilots are the ones flying them. It isn’t some grand conspiracy to screw the legacy United side of the shop.
As for folks thinking the DEN-NRT flight would be the first of the type at United, that was stupid.
How many people rushed to buy Denver tickets thinking they’d be first to fly? 😉
It was the fare as much as anything else for the NRT flight….it will still be fun. Just wish I’d waited on my AMS trip next month….but I think September is a better month to go….so be it.
I wonder if they will have a sale like they did with DEN-NRT and the discount B fare?
Routes out of IAH are also well suited to the smaller size of the 787. JNB from IAH would also be great.
IAH-JNB is too long, I think. It is 1600 miles further than IAH-AKL and that was towards the edge of the range for the 787-8s at least.
I don’t expect a sale to show up for these routes. They’re all currently being sold anyways (though not as 787-operated) so it isn’t like DEN-NRT where they were launching a new route. And it is worth noting that the discount B fare was almost certainly supposed to be an S fare and someone screwed up on that one.