Bay Area gains one new Asia route, loses another

There’s good news and bad news for Bay Area business travelers this week. The good is that United will launched its much-anticipated non-stops from San Francisco International to Singapore tonight. The bad is that San Jose won’t be getting new Shanghai service this month as previously expected.

San Jose Airport spokesperson Rosemary Barnes told TravelSkills that Air China said it is “still in dialogue with Chinese aviation officials” about the planned new non-stops to Shanghai, and that while the route will not be launched on the previously announced June 16 date, “they hope to do so at a later date.”

“Air China did not post the route to their website, so no tickets were sold resulting in no inconvenience to air travelers,” the spokeswoman said. The carrier had planned to fly the route three days a week with a two-class, 237-seat Airbus A330-200. It would have been San Jose’s second China route following Hainan Airlines’ inauguration of San Jose-Beijing service last year. The airport recently welcomed new British Airways service to London, and will see new Frankfurt flights from Lufthansa starting in July.

Meanwhile, United’s San Francisco hub will take big step forward as the premier base for its international Dreamliner fleet with the launch Wednesday night of the airline’s new 787-9 non-stops to Singapore – “the longest scheduled 787 flight operated by any airline, and the longest scheduled flight by any U.S. carrier,” United said.

United Flight 1 will depart San Francisco at 10:55 p.m. daily, arriving at Singapore’s Changi Airport at 6:15 a.m. two days later (all times local). On the return, Flight 2 will depart Singapore at 8:45 a.m. daily, arriving at San Francisco International Airport at 9:15 a.m. the same day.

The 8,446-mile trip takes 16 hours 20 minutes westbound and 15 hours 30 minutes eastbound. Because new non-stops are now available, United has terminated its Tokyo Narita-Singapore service, although it notes that its alliance partner ANA still flies that route. United’s flights are the only non-stops form the U.S. to Singapore; Singapore Airlines used to offer non-stops from New York and Los Angeles but discontinued them in 2013 — although it plans to resume U.S. non-stops in 2018 with new Airbus A350s.

United’s growing international network from SFO includes recently-launched flights to Xi’an, China and to Tel Aviv; coming next month is new service to Auckland, New Zealand and to Hangzhou, China.

NOTE: Be sure to click here to see all recent TravelSkills posts about: United’s newest, longest flight + Tipping Uber drivers + Qantas 747 Trip Report + Confusion over PreCheck policies + No-fee earlier flights

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