United Airlines Will Fly to Brisbane

United Airlines will fly from Brisbane to San Francisco from October, becoming the first airline to add new service between Australia and the United States since the pandemic.

From 28 October 2022, United will fly three times per week between Brisbane and San Francisco using Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners. This is the schedule:

• UA97 Brisbane 10:30 – San Francisco 06:40 – Tuesdays, Fridays & Sundays
• UA96 San Francisco 23:20 – Brisbane 06:30 (+2 days) – Wednesdays, Fridays & Sundays

Tickets are already on sale but at the time of writing, award seats had not yet been released on this route.

United offers cabin classes on its Boeing 787-9 – Economy (including Economy Plus seating with extra legroom), Premium Plus (Premium Economy) and Polaris Business Class.

United recently launched a partnership with Virgin Australia, which has a major hub at Brisbane Airport. Virgin Australia will provide onward connectivity to dozens of destinations on the Australian end of the Brisbane-San Francisco route, while United offers over 80 onward connections from its San Francisco hub.

Under the current terms of the partnership, Velocity Gold and Platinum members would not have lounge access when flying with United from Brisbane. Hopefully, Virgin Australia will be able to negotiate access to the Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge in Brisbane for its frequent flyers booked in United Economy or Premium Plus prior to the new route launching in late October.

The new United service to Brisbane is partially funded by Queensland taxpayers as part of the state government’s $200 million “Attracting Aviation Investment Fund”.

“United has never flown to Queensland. The airline has more than 100 million loyalty members and is the largest and longest-serving US carrier in the Australian market,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.

“This airline route is also of strategic importance for Queensland when it comes to growing our share of the international tourism market… by securing these flights, Queensland becomes an easy choice for thousands of visitors throughout the US.”

Earlier this year, Queensland was struggling to attract international airlines which had largely deserted Brisbane International Airport during the pandemic.

United Airlines has flown from Sydney to San Francisco and Los Angeles throughout the pandemic. In fact, United’s Sydney-San Francisco route is one of the few that never stopped – even during the initial period of lockdowns and border closures in April & May 2020 when no other passenger service was operating between Australia and North America.

United also restarted direct Melbourne-San Francisco flights earlier this week. By the end of this year, United will be operating six routes to Australia with the relaunch of Melbourne-Los Angeles and Sydney-Houston flights. All of United’s flights to Australia feature the new lie-flat Polaris Business seats.

United also plans to resume Auckland-San Francisco flights in September.

Qantas briefly flew from Brisbane to San Francisco before the pandemic. The airline had been planning to return to this route using Airbus A330-200s, and was selling tickets for Brisbane-San Francisco flights last year.

However, Qantas no longer has any Brisbane-San Francisco tickets on sale – and now that there’s direct competition on the route, it’s unlikely they’ll return any time soon. Qantas also recently pushed back the restart of its Sydney-San Francisco flights to late October 2022.

Qantas, which partners with American Airlines, previously announced that it will launch a new Melbourne-Dallas/Fort Worth route in December 2022.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: New United BNE-SFO route from October 2022

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.