United is to launch non-stop flights between San Francisco and Singapore on June 1.
The daily service will be operated by the carrier’s B787 Dreamliner aircraft, and will be the longest scheduled non-stop flight by a US carrier.
Flight UA1 will depart San Francisco at 1125, arriving into Singapore at 0645 two days later, with the return leg UA2 leaving Changi airport at 0845 and landing back into the US at 0915 the same day.
United says that the new non-stop service will save travellers up to four hours journey time each way, compared with the carrier’s current one-stop service and “competitors’ schedules”.
Flight time on the eastbound service will be around 15 hours 30 minutes, with the westbound flight taking around 16 hours 20 minutes.
United says it has timed the new service to connect at San Francisco with “an extensive network of services throughout the US, Canada and Latin America”.
The new route will be the first non-stop service between San Francisco and Singapore. Singapore Airlines has previously offered non-stop flights between its base and both New York and Los Angeles, but these were dropped in 2013 (see news October 2013).
The carrier plans to restart Singapore-US services once it takes delivery of the ultra long-haul version of the Airbus A350 (see news October 2015).
The new United service may be the longest non-stop route by a US carrier, and the longest flight by the B787 Dreamliner, but it won’t be the longest non-stop service worldwide.
That honour currently belongs to Qantas’ A380 Dallas-Sydney route, and will be superceded by Emirates’ B777-200LR service between Dubai and Panama when it launches at the end of March (see news January 14).
united.com
Mark Caswell
