SAN FRANCISCO — United Airlines Flight 1
departed San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday night at 10:55 p.m. for the first time, beginning an
8,446-mile journey to Singapore’s Changi Airport.
The daily flight, a 16 hour and 20 minute trip aboard a Boeing 787
Dreamliner, is the longest scheduled route flown by any U.S. carrier and the
only nonstop flight from the U.S. to Singapore.
The return flight is approximately 15 hours and 30 minutes, and will leave Singapore at
8:45 a.m. Compared with a one-stop trip, the new route should save travelers to
Singapore at least four hours.
“Thanks to United, the world’s going to be a little smaller,”
said Ashok Mirpuri, Singaporean ambassador to the United States.
With advances in aviation technology, nonstop flights to many
international destinations are becoming more common, and visitors are coming to
expect direct routes to distant cities, said Kershing Goh, Singapore Tourism Board's regional
director for the Americas. “For us to compete on the same level,
we need a nonstop flight.”
While UA1 will be the only nonstop link between the U.S.
and Singapore, Singapore Airlines once flew direct to Newark and Los Angeles,
but canceled the routes in 2013 due to high fuel costs. Singapore Airlines plans to resurrect service to Los Angeles and the New York area in 2018.
United and Singapore Airlines filed an application last month to begin codesharing onJuly 1. While the codeshares would begin with eight United-operated domestic
routes, the airlines’ application sought wider authorization that would
include the U.S.-Singapore routes.
Goh and Mirpuri both stressed Singapore’s potential as a gateway
city and a launching point for American visitors’ travels
in Asia.
“Once you land in Singapore, you can reach
out to the rest of the region,” said Mirpuri.
With English one of the official languages and a reputation for
cleanliness, “Singapore is a comfortable first step into Asia,” Goh added.
Arrivals
from the U.S. reached 500,000 in 2015, and Goh said this year is off to a
strong start. The United flight is expected to boost American visitation while serving the robust technology and startup sectors in Silicon Valley and
Singapore.
United vice chairman and chief revenue officer Jim Compton
noted during the event that the new United flight not only puts Singapore a single
flight away from San Francisco, it also connects 26 U.S. cities with one-stop
service to Singapore.
How that service affects U.S visitation will be determined in the
coming months, but as the debut flight made its way across the Pacific, Goh was
optimistic: “We’re quite bullish about the U.S. market.”