Tis the season, for carriers to announce a bunch of new routes! American did a few weeks back, alongside Delta, and even low-cost carrier Primera Air just bolstered its European offerings. Next up at the plate, United Airlines. The Chicago-based carrier just announced today that it would be adding three new routes to its already expansive trans-Atlantic offerings.
Nonstop Flights to Amsterdam, Naples, and Prague will Commence in 2019
Firstly, they will add a new daily nonstop service between San Francisco (SFO) and Amsterdam (AMS), which will be the fifth U.S. city that United will serve the Dutch capital from. Other nonstop service to AMS is available departing Chicago (ORD), Houston (IAH), Newark (EWR), and Washington DC (IAD); so basically all of their major hubs.
This daily route will begin on March 30, 2019, and is available now for the price below:
San Francisco to Amsterdam $573 roundtrip
United’s other two announced routes will serve as seasonal routes. Both will depart from Newark (EWR) and will start in the spring of 2019 and run through October 4, 2019. These new nonstops are:
Newark to Naples $844 roundtrip (Basic Economy, no checked bags included)
Newark to Prague $1390 roundtrip
These current fares above aren’t the most enticing offers, you'll ever see, but they might drop in price as United gets a better grasp on demand for these routes. For now, United offers the only nonstop options on these two new seasonal routes so they can set the bar on pricing, which is quite high at the moment.
If anything, they will be helpful for those who have a bank of MileagePlus miles and are looking to book an award ticket to one of these destinations. We’ve seen a lot of unadvertised sales to Europe over the last few months, so these new routes could get added into the mix or get targeted on price cuts by competing airlines Delta and American.
Bottom line, while these introductory prices on the seasonal routes are nothing to get excited about, the San Francisco to Amsterdam route is a pretty good deal compared to KLM’s nonstop offering on the same service. Which often could list over $1000. In reaction to today’s announcement, we've already seen the Dutch flag-carrier drop their prices down into the low $600 to compete. So the adage is true, healthy competition favors the customer.
