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A little over a year ago, United Airlines announced that it planned to start offering a variety of new flights from Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC. One of those routes was to Lagos, Nigeria, and was scheduled to launch in late spring this year. For reasons that are all too obvious, that route never launched but now United says that it’s ready to give it another try.
United’s New Lagos Route
United Airlines has today confirmed that subject to government approval, it will launch a new service between Washington DC and Lagos, Nigeria on 29 November 2021.
The exact schedule for this new route has not yet been released (United says that it will be bookable through the United app and the United desktop site “this weekend”) but we know that the route will operate 3x/week with flights out of Washington DC on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and out of Lagos on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
As was originally planned when the route was due to launch in the spring, United’s Washington DC – Lagos route will be operated with a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner offering 28 Business Class seats, 21 United Premium Plus Premium Economy seats, 36 Economy Plus seats and 158 standard Economy Class seats.
Patrick Quayle, United’s vice president of international network and alliances has had this to say about the new route:
“This new flight to Lagos has been highly anticipated by our customers and offers the first ever nonstop service between Washington, D.C. and Nigeria, as well as convenient, one-stop connections to over 80 destinations throughout the Americas including Houston and Chicago.”
“On behalf of all of United we’d like to offer our sincere thanks to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and U.S. Department of Transportation for supporting our plans to provide this service.”
This new route to Nigeria builds on United’s expansion into Africa and also confirms the airline’s position as the carrier with the most flights between the DC metro area and Africa.
Earlier this year, United also launched a new service between Newark and Johannesburg as well as a new service between Washington DC and Accra, Ghana (a route which, this December and January, will see United offering a daily service in place of the current 3x/week service).
Bottom Line
United Airlines has confirmed that its delayed Washington DC – Lagos service will now launch on 29 November 2021. As was always planned, the route will be operated 3x/week using a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner but we won’t know the exact schedule until United updates its booking systems in the next 48 hours.
