United Airlines is about to make a big splash in French Polynesia — an exotic collection of more 100 tropical islands in the South Pacific.
Beginning Oct. 30, United will fly three times a week on a widebody Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from its hub at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) nonstop to Papeete, the French Polynesia capital city on the island of Tahiti.
The new route is significant because United will become the first United States-based carrier to serve the island nation nonstop from the U.S. mainland in nearly 30 years.
Coincidentally, the last U.S.-based carrier to serve Papeete nonstop was Continental Airlines, which merged with United in 2010.
United’s move to relaunch service to Papeete from its growing San Francisco hub is part of the carrier’s larger strategy of creating a route network in the Asia Pacific region that includes more destinations than any of its principal U.S.-based legacy competitors, namely American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL) and Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL).
United is counting on filling its Dreamliner flights to Papeete with a large number of high-end leisure travelers. French Polynesia is a relatively expensive place to vacation, in comparison to, say, Hawaii.
Because of Papeete’s relatively remote location in the South Pacific, United’s new nonstop also may be a popular option for connecting leisure travelers flying on United to San Francisco from European and Middle Eastern cities, including Tel Aviv, to which United also flies nonstop from SFO.
Though United hopes to attract lots of tourists to the new Papeete route, one thing is certain: The carrier will not keep the route in the schedule for very long if those tourist travelers don’t materialize.
With fuel prices continuing to climb, United and its competitors no longer are interested in serving international markets just to put another city on their respective global route maps.