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UA Announces new Auckland and Tel Aviv service from San Francisco

Old Oct 8, 2015, 9:39 am
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Last edit by: UA Insider
Hi everyone,

Today we are announcing two additional routes out of San Francisco International Airport (SFO), in addition to our previously announced Xian, China service. Pending government approval, we plan to operate service between San Francisco-Tel Aviv (TLV) and San Francisco-Auckland (AKL) on our Dreamliner aircraft beginning in 2016.

Check out additional details, including launch dates, in our press release.

-UA Insider

http://newsroom.united.com/2015-10-0...Make-it-Better
United Airlines Made SFO the Best Pacific Hub. And Then Found 3 Ways to Make it Better.

Airline to launch one new Atlantic and two new Pacific services

October 08, 2015

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- United Airlines, the U.S. airline with the most comprehensive route network and the most trans-Pacific service, will further expand its global reach with new nonstop service from San Francisco to:

Tel Aviv, Israel, with service three times each week beginning March 30, 2016;
Auckland, New Zealand, with service three times each week beginning July 1, 2016, expanding to daily service in October; and
Xi'an, China, previously announced, three-times-weekly service beginning May 8, 2016, for the summer season.

Each new service is subject to government approval.

The airline intends to operate the new flights with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the world's most advanced passenger airplane.

The Tel Aviv and Xi'an flights will be available for booking on united.com on October 10, 2015, with the Auckland flights available for booking on October 17, 2015.

San Francisco-Tel Aviv: Linking High-Tech Markets

As part of United's evaluation for serving San Francisco (SFO) to Tel Aviv (TLV) nonstop, the airline considered the opinions of thousands of customers who petitioned for the service through the SFOTLV.ORG petition effort.

"Providing corporate customers from throughout the Bay Area and Silicon Valley nonstop service to the high-tech market in Israel has been high on our priority list at United," said Dave Hilfman, United's senior vice president of worldwide sales. "Now with the 787-9 Dreamliner, we're delighted to make it a reality."

Flight | From To | Departure | Arrival

UA954 | SFO TLV | 8 p.m. We/Fr/Su | 8:10 p.m. the next day

UA955 | TLV SFO | 12:55 a.m. Tu/Fr/Su | 6 a.m. the same day

Flight times will be 14 hours, 10 minutes eastbound and 15 hours, 5 minutes westbound.

United has served Israel since 1999. The airline currently offers twice-daily Boeing 777 nonstop flights between Tel Aviv and New York/Newark.

San Francisco-Auckland

United's three-times weekly service to Auckland (AKL), New Zealand's largest city and main transportation hub to other points throughout the country, will launch July 1, 2016, with 787-8 aircraft. The schedule will expand to daily flights operating with 787-9 aircraft on Oct. 28, 2016, in time for the peak-winter travel season.

The Auckland flights will operate in partnership with United's Star Alliance partner Air New Zealand.

Flight | From To | Departure | Arrival

UA917 | SFO AKL | 10:45 p.m. | 6:55 a.m. two days later

UA916 | AKL SFO | 1:20 p.m. | 6:40 a.m. the same day

Flight times will be 13 hours, 10 minutes westbound and 12 hours, 20 minutes eastbound.

United in San Francisco

From its San Francisco hub, United operates nearly 280 daily flights to more than 90 destinations in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia/Pacific.
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UA Announces new Auckland and Tel Aviv service from San Francisco

Old Oct 10, 2015, 1:59 pm
  #181  
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Originally Posted by nunusguy
I dunno, are there many Jews in the Bay Area with dual citizenships as in
NYC ? I mean I know NYC has more Jews than anyplace after Israel, so I'm not expecting a huge number of dualAmerican-Israeli citizen in the Bay Area, but there's possibly a fairly impressive concentration though not as many as say LA, but of course LA isn't a UA hub.
  1. As discussed, Jewish population isn't close to the only factor
  2. Even if it was, what does dual citizenship have anything to do with that? It's not only dual British/American citizens who visit London (for example)
  3. LAX is a UA hub
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Old Oct 10, 2015, 2:27 pm
  #182  
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Originally Posted by HkCaGu
UA can bring Israelis to the SFBA and LA on one itinerary. El Al can take you to LA, but...
El Al can bring Israelis to SFBA on one itinerary too. Looks like their preferred routing is TLV-LY-BOS-LY/B6-SFO on the cheapest fares, but other fares allow
TLV-LY-LAX-VX-SFO
TLV-LY-NYC-B6/VX/LY-SFO
TLV-LY-BOS-VX/LY/B6-SFO
TLV-LY-MUC/FRA-LH-SFO
TLV-LY-LON-VS-SFO
etc
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Old Oct 10, 2015, 3:12 pm
  #183  
 
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The great benefit of these two new routes is their arrival time of 06h00 and 06h40.

It means when my TPE-SFO, scheduled arrival of 07h30, is early, I don't have to wait 40 minutes on the aircraft waiting for US immigration to open at 07h30.

Cheers
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Old Oct 10, 2015, 3:13 pm
  #184  
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Originally Posted by mduell
El Al can bring Israelis to SFBA on one itinerary too.
But with an inferior angle-flat business class product.
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Old Oct 10, 2015, 3:28 pm
  #185  
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Originally Posted by HkCaGu
UA can bring Israelis to the SFBA and LA on one itinerary. El Al can take you to LA, but...
LY can take you past BOS/JFK/EWR/LAX with connections, specifically B6, as noted below...

Originally Posted by mduell
El Al can bring Israelis to SFBA on one itinerary too. Looks like their preferred routing is TLV-LY-BOS-LY/B6-SFO on the cheapest fares, but other fares allow
TLV-LY-LAX-VX-SFO
TLV-LY-NYC-B6/VX/LY-SFO
TLV-LY-BOS-VX/LY/B6-SFO
TLV-LY-MUC/FRA-LH-SFO
TLV-LY-LON-VS-SFO
etc
Yes, though that's interlined booking. UA can do the whole shebang on their own. So technically LY can do it in one booking, not as seamless as UA

Originally Posted by Kacee
But with an inferior angle-flat business class product.
And an inferior FF program and everything (though technically the seats do go fully flat now), but that wasn't the question mduell was answering. But ya, avoid LY generally (though I find their actual in-flight service to be much better than UA - just the food, amenities, and IFE is much worse)
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Old Oct 11, 2015, 6:47 pm
  #186  
 
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I don't see any award availability to TLV.
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Old Oct 11, 2015, 7:32 pm
  #187  
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Originally Posted by hamburglar
I don't see any award availability to TLV.
Are you surprised? The flight just got loaded in to the system. There's a pretty good chance the company is going to try to sell seats and test demand levels before opening up award space.
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Old Oct 11, 2015, 9:13 pm
  #188  
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JonNYC reports that AA is expected to announce a new AKL route shortly, probably from their LAX hub, so there will be some One World competition into New Zealand from the U.S.
http://www.travelingbetter.com/showp...1&postcount=68
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Old Oct 11, 2015, 9:44 pm
  #189  
 
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Originally Posted by sbm12
Are you surprised? The flight just got loaded in to the system. There's a pretty good chance the company is going to try to sell seats and test demand levels before opening up award space.
How very constructive...


.. FWIW, I see standard award space on days where I am finding revenue tickets for sale (as should be the case for a premier member).
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Old Oct 11, 2015, 9:46 pm
  #190  
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Originally Posted by sbm12
Are you surprised? The flight just got loaded in to the system. There's a pretty good chance the company is going to try to sell seats and test demand levels before opening up award space.
Actually it's not unusual for quite a bit of award space to be released when they first open the flight for reservations.

That's exactly what happened with LAX-MEL.
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Old Oct 11, 2015, 10:25 pm
  #191  
 
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Originally Posted by Kacee
That's exactly what happened with LAX-MEL.
And if I recall correctly, it abruptly disappeared as few days later - too quickly and too across the board to have been all snapped up. ie, that was probably a mistake, not a deliberate move.
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Old Oct 11, 2015, 10:30 pm
  #192  
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Originally Posted by docbert
And if I recall correctly, it abruptly disappeared as few days later - too quickly and too across the board to have been all snapped up. ie, that was probably a mistake, not a deliberate move.
And I suspect people were hoping for the same with TLV

UA has actually gotten much better about not making mistakes. Whole lot of nothing recently in the premium cabin fares thread.
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Old Oct 12, 2015, 11:02 pm
  #193  
 
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frequent traveler to NZ so glad to hear UA is returning to New Zealand when I'm looking for PQD's it's a stopover in SYD, now I can trim my travel time. Having flash back's to those old beat-up 747's and DC10's operated by united and continental it was like playing russian roulette never sure if you would get there or where you might end up, and the food (well unless you got that upgrade to first) was hit or miss - but there was good time that how I earned my 1k for life.
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Old Oct 14, 2015, 3:49 pm
  #194  
 
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Strangely, Kayak shows only Y seats available. E.g. https://www.kayak.com/flights/TLV-SF...-6to8/business
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Old Oct 14, 2015, 7:32 pm
  #195  
 
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Originally Posted by Imstevek
This is a very curious comment to me. Like most of the other posters, we have a y-only policy, with very one-off exceptions. Even from my east coast office to Asia thru SFO, we have a squad of 100-200 folks constantly shuttling back and forth, always booked in Y. Not to mention the HQ squad 10-15x that size doing the route ex-SFO at the same frequency.
This is a curious comment to me. Are you doubting that there are large companies that send their employees overseas in business (and first) class? I consult with a 250,000+ employee Bay Area co-based company with world-wide reach. Standard travel policy provides for J class for all employees when travelling internationally. Most SVP/GVP+ have first class provisions custom written into their employment contracts.
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