With tentative summer travel under way, United Airlines is making the most significant additions to its flight schedule since the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S.
The Chicago-based carrier announced on Wednesday that it is adding nearly 25,000 flights back to its schedule for August amid upticks in demand for summer air travel.
Domestic flights will see the biggest additions, with the carrier adding more than 600 daily flights within the U.S., resuming 50 suspended routes, and doubling the amount of flights out of its Newark, New Jersey, hub next month. It plans to operate 48 percent of its 2019 domestic schedule.
United says it's tapping into demand from customers who feel comfortable flying to visit family and friends. The airline will also be “adding in flights to places we know customers want to travel to, like outdoor recreation destinations where social distancing is easier,” Ankit Gupta, United Airlines' vice president of domestic network planning, said in a release on Wednesday. That includes mountainous areas and national park areas like Aspen; Bangor, Maine; Bozeman, Montana; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and additional flights to Hawaii.
While the bulk of the flights coming back are domestic, the airline is also bringing back a quarter of its international flights in August—a significant jump from the 16 percent it plans to operate in July—with an emphasis on vacation markets. “For August, we’ve seen increasing demand for leisure travel and have added options to places like Cancun and reinstated service to Tahiti,” Patrick Quayle, United’s vice president of international network and alliances said in a release.
Despite the fact that the European Union has began barring U.S. travelers from visiting its member nations due to a resurgence of COVID-19 cases around America, United is resuming several of its important routes to Europe. Flights from Chicago to Frankfurt and Brussels will restart next month, along with flights from Newark to Brussels, Munich, and Zurich, and from San Francisco to London.
United also recently mentioned that it would resume its San Francisco to Shanghai route on July 8—its first flights back into China since the pandemic began. In August, the carrier will restart flights to Seoul, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, too.
The resumed routes come as U.S. travelers prepare for the July Fourth holiday weekend, which is expected to be one of the busiest travel windows since the outbreak took hold in the U.S.. More than 600,000 passengers are expected to fly per day during the holiday weekend and into the week of July 7, according to analysts at Cowen investment bank. That would be the highest sustained average of fliers since March when the outbreak took hold in the U.S.
In addition to adding flights back, United has also been putting new health and safety measures in place. These include banning passengers who don’t wear masks from future flights, using electrostatic sprayers to disinfect all mainline aircraft before each flight, and partnering with medical experts from Cleveland Clinic to implement a pre-flight health questionnaire. The carrier has also extended its no-fee policy for flight changes or cancellations for airfares booked through July 31.
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