While the most common way for American travelers to get to Portugal had formerly been with a flight to Lisbon (or a transfer in a larger European hub), the country’s exploding popularity has pushed airlines to launch more routes not just to the capital but also to smaller cities that are common destinations for tourists.
For the summer of 2024, Delta Air Lines (DAL) resumed a Boston-Lisbon route that was lost to the pandemic while United Airlines (UAL) announced a new flight between Newark International Airport (EWR) and Faro in the country’s coastal Algarve region.
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The latter flight, which was initially scheduled to start running on May 24 on a Boeing 757-200 (BA) , is now put off indefinitely as both Boeing and United face investigations over several high-profile incidents such as when smoke filled the cabin on a plane taking off from Los Angeles and a tire falling off at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
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There is a big reason that a glitzy new route was canceled
While no injuries were caused, the airline is holding off on the route that it would want to launch to great fanfare to focus on both the investigation and rebuilding its PR image.
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“It's unlike United to cancel such a splashy new route with such short notice, especially considering how the carrier made a big marketing push around the new route when it was originally announced in October,” writes Zach Griff of The Points Guy. “Turns out, the reason for United's close-in cancellation is due to the ongoing Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) audit that commenced just a few days ago due to recent safety events involving the airline, as confirmed by a carrier spokesperson.”
The same spokesperson said that it still plans to launch the Newark-Faro flight by the summer of 2025 but did not give any more concrete details about the schedule. It is also delaying a “fifth freedom” route that goes from the U.S. to Tokyo and later on to Cebu in the Philippines.
Both destinations have been seeing growing interest from American tourists and the airline tried to tap into a market that was formerly filled only by smaller local airlines that tourists from far away would catch after flying into a metropolis.
There’s been a wrinkle in United’s plan to tap into hot new tourist destinations
"We have consistently been ahead of the curve in finding hidden gem destinations for our customers to explore and remain committed to providing the most unique slate of travel options for their adventures abroad," United's Senior Vice President of Global Network Planning Patrick Quayle said in a statement at the time.
Now, the airline is delaying such routes that it launched both to market itself as an airline that flies to such popular destinations and to slowly build out demand in order to focus on the investigation and bad publicity that came as a result of the recent safety incidents.
“This schedule change is a consequence of that,” United said in a statement while adding that those who had already booked flights to Faro or Cebu on their site will receive communication from the airline and a “full refund” of what they paid.
