United Airlines announced Wednesday it will commence one-stop flights to the Southeast Asian hotspots of Bangkok (BKK) and Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) later this year while adding another nonstop destination in Australia: Adelaide (ADL).
No airline makes bigger moves when it comes to splashy new routes than United – this is the airline that's already adding flights to Greenland and Mongolia this spring, after all. And while the routes to the Thai and Vietnamese cities won't operate nonstop from the U.S. – both will make a pitstop in Hong Kong (HKG) – they'll give U.S. travelers a quicker, familiar way to get there.
With two flights a day to Hong Kong from both San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX), passengers can easily connect down to both Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh. Both of United's short-haul Southeast Asia routes will operate daily starting Oct. 26 on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner outfitted with United Polaris business class seats, a premium economy cabin, extra legroom economy, and standard economy seats.
Neither new flight is bookable just yet – and it's unclear when they'll go up for sale.
Meanwhile, United is also adding a fourth nonstop route to Australia with a seasonal flight from San Francisco to Adelaide on its southern coast, flying three times a week beginning Dec. 11. United already flies nonstop to Sydney (SYD), Melbourne (MEL), and Brisbane (BNE).
The airline is also adding a second daily flight from San Francisco to Manila (MNL) as of Oct. 25.
After going big on Europe in the initial post-pandemic travel boom, airlines are increasingly looking over the Pacific Ocean these days. And there's nowhere more popular than Vietnam and especially Thailand right now, with season 3 of the White Lotus set on the captivating Thai island of Koh Samui.
United says this expansion will give it a grand total of 32 destinations across the Pacific – “four times that of any other U.S. carrier,” it says.
“At United, we're changing the way people think about where they travel,” Patrick Quayle, United's senior vice president of global network planning and alliances, said in a statement. “We offer more than the best schedule and travel options – we connect customers to sought-after destinations and opportunities to explore new, vibrant cities.”
Once service begins this fall, United will become the only U.S. airline with a presence in either Vietnam or Thailand. Air Canada launched nonstops to Bangkok from Vancouver (YVR) back in late 2022 while Vietnam Airlines currently flies nonstop between San Francisco and Ho Chi Minh.
But it won't be the first time a U.S. airline has flown into either Southeastern Asian city. Both Delta and United itself previously flew into Bangkok with connections in Tokyo-Narita (NRT) or Hong Kong. And United operated a flight between Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh as recently as 2016, according to schedule data from the aviation analytics company Cirium.
This is a developing news story, check back for details.