Buoyed by full planes across the Atlantic this summer, United Airlines is planning another increase in its summer service from the United States to Europe next year.
United said Wednesday that it will resume seasonal flights
from Newark, New Jersey, to Stockholm, which it dropped in 2019, and launch new
summer service from Newark to Malaga, Spain. However, the airline will drop
Bergen, Norway — one of nine routes it added this summer — after disappointing
results.
In all, the airline expects to increase passenger-carrying
capacity across the Atlantic next summer by up to 30% over pre-pandemic 2019.
That increase includes United’s previously announced plan to resume flying to
Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, a destination it abandoned in 2016.
United and other airlines have been forced to cancel some
flights this year because of limits imposed by airports in London and
Amsterdam, which are struggling with staffing shortages. Patrick Quayle, the
airline’s senior vice president of network planning, said that after talking
with airport officials, United is confident it can operate the planned 2023
European schedule.
United, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines were boosted
this summer by strong demand and high fares on flights to Europe, as Americans
took advantage of fewer pandemic-related travel restrictions. Those
international trips likely figured in American’s move Tuesday to raise its
forecast of third-quarter revenue, although the airline did not break out
results by region.
Asia and the South Pacific have been slower to come back,
although United has gradually added flights to Australia and other
destinations. China, however, remains largely closed off to foreigners, with
cities still imposing new lockdowns based on the smallest numbers of COVID-19
cases, and Japan just ended border restrictions that had been in place for more
than two years.
Quayle said United “will just follow the government process”
when China reopens, and will phase in the resumption of flights to Japan. With
those “notable exceptions,” he said, “everything else across the Pacific is
going to be running full-steam this winter.”
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