United to add more than 25,000 flights in August

United Airlines on Wednesday announced that it is adding nearly 25,000 domestic and international flights to its August schedule, which will be triple the size of its June schedule.

It plans to add more than 600 daily domestic flights next month, including 350 more daily flights from its hubs, and double the number of flights it runs out of Newark compared to the July schedule. The airline’s planned August domestic schedule would still be only 48 percent of its August 2019 schedule.

Airline companies have been hit hard by a drastic reduction in travel amid the global coronavirus pandemic. United had warned employees of “tough decisions” in April and a number of airlines have implemented pay cuts or layoffs to deal with the significant financial losses amid the pandemic.  

The airline noted that it is adding flights to mountain and national park destinations, including Aspen, Colo.; Bangor, Maine; Bozeman, Mont.; Jackson Hole, Wyo.; and Hawaii. The additional flights in August will add about 90 aircraft back in service.

The company also plans on adding flights to Mexico, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Paris and Zurich, as well as other locations. The airline’s planned August international schedule would still be only 25 percent of its August 2019 schedule.

“Demand is coming back slowly and we’re building in enough capacity to stay ahead of the number of people traveling. And we’re adding in flights to places we know customers want to travel to, like outdoor recreation destinations where social distancing is easier but doing so in a way that’s flexible and allows us to adjust should that demand change,” Ankit Gupta, United’s vice president of domestic network planning, said in a statement.

United had announced on Friday that it will resume service between the U.S. and China on July 8 and plans on resuming flights from the U.S. to Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Singapore in July.

United’s health and safety measures will include requiring all passengers to wear face coverings, removing travel privileges for customers who refuse to do so and offering customers touch-less baggage check-in.

It is also regularly sanitizing all aircraft and using circulation systems with filters that extract up to 99.97 percent of airborne particles.

The airline will also be requiring customers to acknowledge they have not contracted the coronavirus when they check-in.