United Airlines will operate a one-off B787-9 Dreamliner service to London Heathrow next month.
The US airline will fly the aircraft between Houston and LHR on October 16/17.
Flight UA004 will depart Houston at 2100 on October 16 and land at Heathrow Terminal 2 at 1205 the following day. Return service UA005 will then take-off from LHR at 1335 and arrive back in Houston at 1745 the same day.
United will also run a one-off San Francisco to Chengdu B787-9 service on October 20, reports airlineroute.net.
It has previously announced it will deploy the aircraft on a direct service from Los Angeles to Melbourne, to launch on October 26 (see news, February 21).
The carrier took delivery of its first B787-9 earlier this month (see news, September 4).
United will configure the Dreamliner with 252 seats — 48 in Business First and 204 in economy, including 88 premium economy seats.
It is the North American launch customer for the B787-9. In August, United converted seven of its eight remaining B787-8 orders to the extended B787-10 model (see news, August 5).
Air New Zealand will start flying the B787-9 from Auckland to Perth 11 days earlier on October 15 (see news, November 7).
Graham Smith
