United Airlines has just revealed all new international routes for 2022, and there are quite some interesting flights among them. United sure knows how to generate buzz, because the airline let us avgeeks guess the new routes. Let’s go over the details of United’s latest international expansion.
United Airlines’ five new international destinations
Most exciting of all, United Airlines will add flights to five all new destinations that weren’t previously served. These include the following:
- Amman, Jordan (AMM) — as of May 5, 2022, United will launch a 3x weekly flight from Washington using a Boeing 787-8
- Ponta Delgada, Portugal (PDL) — as of May 13, 2022, United will launch a 3x weekly flight (daily from July through August) from Newark using a Boeing 737 MAX 8
- Bergen, Norway (BGO) — as of May 20, 2022, United will launch a 3x weekly flight from Newark using a Boeing 757-200
- Tenerife, Spain (TFS) — as of June 2, 2022, United will launch a 3x weekly flight from Newark using a Boeing 757-200
- Palma de Mallorca, Spain (PMI) — as of June 9, 2022, United will launch a 3x weekly flight from Newark using a Boeing 767-300
Those are some pretty cool additions. The Amman route seems like it’s primarily motivated by government traffic, both given the origin in Washington, as well as United not otherwise having a partner airline there (Royal Jordanian is in the oneworld alliance).
The new European routes are great as well, giving summer travelers the opportunity to fly nonstop to many vacation hotspots, rather than having to connect. That being said, United’s 757s don’t exactly have a great onboard product, and for that matter the 737 MAX 8 doesn’t have a proper business class (however, the Azores is really more like a transcon flight than a transatlantic flight in terms of distance).
United Airlines’ three new international routes
In addition to adding service to five new cities, United will also add new routes to three existing cities. Specifically:
- As of April 23, 2022, United will add a daily flight between Denver and Munich using a Boeing 787-9
- As of May 6, 2022, United will add a daily flight between Washington and Berlin using a Boeing 767-400
- As of May 6, 2022, United will add a daily flight between Chicago and Milan using a Boeing 787-8
I’m always happy to see more nonstop flights to Berlin from the United States, since it’s a great city.
Now I’m even more confused by the clues
Yesterday United Airlines released an awesome teaser video about the new routes, and it’s always so fun to play along and see how many routes we could guess.
Now that the routes have been announced and I’m going back to look at the video, am I the only one that’s confused by many of these clues?
For example, apparently a clue for the Amman service was the departure board at Washington Dulles showing flight UA15906. There’s significance to that — that’s 5,965 (the distance of the flight in miles) divided by eight (because the route is a Boeing 787-8) and multiplied by three (the frequency of the route). Were we seriously supposed to guess that?
And then what was the significance of luggage lock showing the numbers “102” and “324?” I was so sure we were going to see a tag flight (not to be confused with a TAAG flight) between Accra and Luanda, given that those are the country codes for Ghana and Angola. Was that intended just to throw us off, or…?
Bottom line
United Airlines is by far the most global of the major airlines in the United States, as the carrier operates some pretty impressive routes. It’s always exciting to see more nonstop international routes, and in this case United didn’t disappoint — from Amman, to popular summer vacation destinations in Europe, United has several great new additions here.
What do you make of United’s new international routes?
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