As part of its international expansion effort at its Washington Dulles hub, United Airlines today announced that it will offer new daily passenger and cargo service between Washington, D.C., and the Eternal City of Rome. Pending Italian government approval, United will begin service to Rome on April 1, 2007 and service from Rome on April 2, 2007. Flights are open for sale beginning today.

United’s new service to Rome strengthens Washington Dulles as United’s international gateway on the East Coast, including direct service to almost a dozen world capitals. Other recently-announced capital-to-capital service from Washington Dulles includes United’s first-ever service to the Middle East through Kuwait City and its first-ever service from Washington, D.C., to Japan via Tokyo Narita—both to begin this month. United also recently applied to offer the first-ever nonstop service between Washington, D.C., and Beijing.

“Our Rome service demonstrates United’s commitment to offering our customers on the East Coast service to more new international destinations,” says John Tague, executive vice president and chief revenue officer. “We are strengthening our global network by making Washington Dulles a major international gateway linking our nation’s capital to those of the world. With the addition of our Rome service, our customers will have nonstop service between Washington, D.C. and 23 international destinations including eight in Europe.”

 
United plans to operate combined passenger and cargo service between the United States and Rome using a Boeing-777 aircraft configured with 10 United First Suite(R) seats, 45 United Business(R) seats and 198 United Economy(R) class seats, including 84 Economy Plus(R) seats that have up to five more inches of legroom.

This fall, United Airlines will have increased its international and U.S. domestic service for business and leisure travelers from Washington Dulles by 39 new flights. This represents an approximate 14 percent increase in departures compared to fall of last year. With this increase, United will provide an average of 321 daily departures from Washington Dulles by November 2006 and convenient connections to more than 90 destinations.
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