The departure boards are full for summer departures at Dulles International Airport, with many new destinations mixed in with those that have resumed, and there will be more destinations this winter as well.
United Airlines is among the first to release its winter schedule. It is adding nearly 150 flights to warm-weather destinations, including a dozen additional flights from Dulles.
United’s winter schedule for Dulles includes a new route to Barbados and additional service to New Orleans, Charleston and Phoenix. It said those routes are in response to the travel demand for warm weather destinations this winter as well as trends it foresees later this year.
Systemwide, United will increase service to Latin American beach and leisure markets by 30% compared to 2019, and will fly 137 more flights this winter than it did in 2019 to Florida, California, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. Those flights will start this November and run through next March.
Summer travel has already exceeded expectations. United said during the Independence Day travel period, it carried five times as many customers as it did over the same period in 2020.
United has responded to an increase in demand for European destinations from Dulles, adding its first nonstop service to Athens, Greece, this month, as well as a second daily flight to Frankfurt, Germany. United also resumed daily year-round service from Dulles to Paris this month.
Brussels Airlines resumed nonstop service from Dulles to Brussels last month.
United, the dominant carrier at Dulles, has increased current daily departures there to 220 flights, saying summer travel bookings are triple what they were last summer.
Other summer additions at Dulles include the following:
- Air Canada increased to twice daily flights from Dulles to Toronto on June 18;
- Royal Air Maroc increased to six weekly flights between Dulles and Casablanca June 28;
- IcelandAir increased to daily service between Dulles and Keflavik on June 28;
- TAP Air Portugal increased to daily service between Dulles and Lisbon on July 1;
- Avianca Airlines added a fourth daily flight between Dulles and San Salvador July 1;
- Volaris increased its Dulles to San Salvador route to three days a week on July 7;
- Aeroflot resumes service from Dulles to Moscow on Wednesdays starting July 14;
- Qatar Airlines adds a second daily flight between Dulles and Doha starting July 22;
- Aer Lingus resumes its service from Dulles to Dublin on Aug. 13;
- American Airlines launches new services from Dulles to Austin on Aug. 17;
- Air Senegal starts new flights from Dulles to Dakar, Senegal, with a stop at JFK, starting Sept. 2.
TSA screened almost 2.2 million passengers at U.S. airports on July 11, within 18% of the same Sunday two years ago and the highest number of U.S. air travelers since the pandemic began.
