Why It Makes Sense For United Airlines to Offer Direct Flights from the U.S. to Manila

When United Airlines launches a daily service between San Francisco, California and Manila in October this year, it will mark the first time that an American airline is flying direct from the continental United States to the Philippines. 

United already flies to Manila from Guam, which is a US territory, and Palau.

In a news release, United said it plans to launch the service on October 29, 2023 (October 30 in Manila). It will fly the route daily using the largest airplane in its fleet—the Boeing 777-300ER.

It makes sense for United to offer a direct flight between Manila and the U.S. Currently, only Philippine Airlines offers flights from Manila to cities in North America, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Vancouver. While other airlines fly between the Philippines and the U.S., PAL is the only one with a direct connection from Manila. By launching its own direct service, United hopes to get a slice of this lucrative market, providing competition to the Philippines’ flag carrier.

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The new service is part of United’s plan to expand its network in Asia and the Pacific. In addition to SFO-MNL, United said it would resume daily nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Tokyo’s Narita International Airport starting October 28 (complementing its current service between Los Angeles and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport) and will also increase its service between both San Francisco and Taipei in Taiwan and between Los Angeles and Hong Kong. 

For passengers, a new direct service from Manila to one of the largest cities in the West Coast of the U.S. means they now have a choice and are no longer limited to flying PAL.

“We are excited to launch the new nonstop service from Manila to San Francisco to meet strong requests from our customers on both sides of the Pacific,” said Wally Dias, United’s regional director of sales for greater China, Korea and Southeast Asia. “With this new nonstop service, we will be able to offer our Manila customers not only the convenient daily nonstop service to San Francisco, but also more than 70 one-stop destinations in the mainland U.S., Canada and Latin America via our hub in San Francisco.

“We have more than 40 years of a long and rich history in the Manila market and the launch of our first trans-Pacific service truly shows our continued strong commitment to the Philippine market,” he added.

A casual search to compare fares on roundtrip tickets between MNL and SFO reveals about the same pricing for both PAL and United, although United comes out as slightly more expensive for Business Class seats.

For the Manila to San Francisco leg, United departs at 9:55 a.m. and arrives at 7:20 a.m. while PAL departs at 11 p.m. and lands also on the same day at 8:20 p.m. Meanwhile, for the San Francisco to Manila leg, United departs at 11:35 p.m. and arrives at 6:50 a.m. two days later, with PAL having roughly the same schedule.

Interestingly, sources say the new general manager of United Airlines in the Philippines used to work for Philippine Airlines. Bryan Lim worked for the flag carrier for nine years and was most recently the regional head for the U.S. and Canada until August 2022, according to his LinkedIn page.