United Airlines has a lengthy history in Australia among U.S. airlines, and it will begin a new chapter on Friday.
Brisbane Airport (BNE), which serves the state capital of Queensland in Australia, becomes the airline's third Australian destination.
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner will be used for the three times weekly flight out of San Francisco International Airport (SFO) all year long.
Additionally, on Friday, United will resume service between Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Melbourne Airport as well as between Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and Sydney Airport (SYD) (MEL).
Both routes were in operation before the COVID-19 epidemic started, and they are now again.
The longest route in United's network, from Houston, will run three times each week until December 15, when it will switch to daily service, providing more service than the route did before the pandemic.
Additionally, the Los Angeles route will operate three times a week through early December before switching to daily service.
The 787-9 Dreamliner flies both routes.
As the nation reopened this year, Patrick Quayle, senior vice president of global network planning and alliances at United, stated in an interview that demand for Australia has been high.
United will fly its busiest Australia schedule ever by the end of next month in an effort to take advantage of that.
However, United's expansion of its service to Australia is also the result of a recent alliance with Virgin Australia, about which the airline is especially pleased.
The second-largest airline in Australia, which recently filed for bankruptcy due to COVID, started working with United this year after ending a long-term collaboration with Delta Air Lines that had turned into a joint venture.
As Virgin rebuilt under bankruptcy protection, that alliance came to an abrupt end.
When faltering Pan Am's Pacific operations were bought by United in 1986 for just $750 million, it became the first airline to serve Australia. To this day, the industry considers this transaction to be a steal for United.
United, a mostly domestic carrier, transformed overnight into a significant transpacific operator.
With its LAX hub also providing a sizable amount of transpacific travel, United's SFO hub evolved become a prominent Pacific gateway.
The new alliance between United and Virgin Australia marks the second time the Chicago-based airline has worked with Virgin in Brisbane.
Virgin Blue, the original name of Virgin Australia, and United started a codeshare arrangement after the 2002 bankruptcy of fellow Star Alliance member Ansett Australia.
Virgin, meanwhile, had concentrated on its partnership with Delta over the previous ten years, leaving United without an Australian partner.
Without a partner, we had the largest network, Quayle claimed.
Instead, United has partnered closely with Star Alliance member Air New Zealand, which has just begun offering service to important United hubs at Houston International Airport and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport (ORD).
(That airline also began flying to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, which was a significant market for United; however, the airline is currently stopping service at JFK.)
American Airlines and Qantas were founder members of Oneworld in 1998.
Since then, that connection has only grown stronger.
The two airlines are now participants in a protected joint venture, which entitles them to collaborate on rates and itineraries as well as to divide profits from services provided between the United States and Australia.
In fact, Qantas briefly began operating flights on the SFO-BNE route in February 2020, but soon discontinued them as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic.
(Qantas does provide service to LAX from BNE, enabling connections through American's hub in California.)
In light of this, United's decision to launch service to Brisbane can be interpreted as an effort to defend the carrier's SFO hub and prevent the Qantas service from restarting.
Whatever the driving force, Quayle claimed that the feed at both ends of the line is what gives United such a strong reason to invest in this new route.
He claimed that "these two incredibly strong brands" and the networks "can feed each other."
And that's what you're truly observing—the maturity that results from receiving feed from both ends.
United will overtake other airlines between the United States and Australia by the end of the year, predicts aviation data company Cirium.
(However, United is moved to second rank when the American-Qantas partnership is included.)
One issue still remains: How much market share can United take from Qantas and American, the two major competitors in the market, if Virgin builds up once more in the wake of the epidemic and United supports it with its greatest Australia schedule ever?
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