United Airlines is going to start flying from San Francisco to Brisbane, Australia for the first time. This is a brand new city for the airline, adding the state of Queensland to the network.
The US carrier initially started services down under in 1986, when it purchased Pan Am’s Pacific Division. Today it flies from San Francisco to Sydney and Melbourne and Los Angeles to Sydney. Later this year will see the return of Los Angles to Melbourne and Houston to Sydney.
San Francisco to Brisbane
Services will commence on San Francisco (SFO) to Brisbane (BNE) from 28 October 2022 and operate three times per week. UA96 will depart the United States on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 11:20pm, landing in Australia two days later at 6:30am.
A Partnership With Virgin Australia
Australia’s second largest domestic airline is Virgin Australia and they have recently ditched their partnership with Delta and instead teamed up with United. Passengers will be able to connect over Brisbane to other points in Australia.
Overall Thoughts
Excellent to see United Airlines adding Brisbane to their route network. I’m sure the financial incentives from the Queensland state Government also helped swing the pendulum that way.
Brisbane opened a second runway in July 2020, which will alleviate any congestion that was once present at the facility. Almost 2.5 million people live in the Australian city, making it the third largest in the country after Sydney and Melbourne.
Will you be flying United on these new flights? What do you think of the news? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Bill Abbott via Wikimedia Commons.
Polaris seat via One Mile At A Time.
Virgin Australia by Jeff Gilbert on JetPhotos via Wikimedia Commons.
Once they teamed up with VA, a UA link to BNE was a no-brainer. And with most of Asia still under weird COVID rules the SFO hub could use a boost. Last I heard we here in STL have not got our UA link to SFO back because some of it was dependent on Asia connections. Southwest flirts with STL-Bay Area but not SFO.
Yes, Asia is taking a really long time getting themselves sorted out when it comes to dropping the rules. This should work out fine, these flights. Hopefully anyway!
I think a great change. Can now fly to the Australia Zoo.
Certainly better than having to connect, that’s for sure! Thanks for the comment.
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