United's forthcoming service to Kuwait is a welcome return to the Middle East region by a US carrier.
In their heyday the famous US airlines Pan Am and TWA flew daily to the Middle East. Pan Am served Beirut and Tehran while TWA flew into Cairo and Dhahran.
But Pan Am and TWA are no more and their successors American and United have since shunned the region citing security concerns. The latter prefer to hand their Middle East-bound passengers over to alliance partners at a European gateway so a passenger taking United from New York to, say, Kuwait would be handed over to Lufthansa at Frankfurt.
United will be the only US carrier flying to an Arab country. It will begin non-stop B777 flights from Washington Dulles to Kuwait in late October. Services will operate every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday departing the US at 2156 to reach Kuwait the following day at 1755. The return service is set to depart at 0035 to reach Washington Dulles the same morning at 0627.
The B777 is configured for 10 first, 45 business and 198 economy class passengers. It will also have a fair amount of cargo capacity as United is using Kuwait as a gateway to Iraq.
Flights are timed to allow connections at Washington Dulles for domestic US destinations.
For more information go to united.com.
Report by Alex McWhirter
