United Airlines has announced it intends to restart flights from San Francisco to Auckland after a gap of more than a decade.
Subject to government approval, the three flights a week service will begin on July 3, 2016.
United will operate Dreamliners on the route and plans to expand to a daily service from October 20, 2016.
"We’re very excited about adding Auckland to our global route network and offering our New Zealand customers nonstop service to the US," said Jim Compton, United’s chief revenue officer.
"Customers will not only be able to fly with United direct to one of America’s most popular business and tourism destinations, they’ll also benefit from seamless onward connections via our San Francisco hub to cities throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Central/South America."
The move will see an expansion in the partnership of United and Air New Zealand, the only carrier that currently serves the route.
"We’re really quite excited about this because we’ve had a longstanding relationship with United for actually almost 20 years back to the early days of Star Alliance. If we can make that more seamless with greater connectivity through the big hubs, that’s only going to be a really good thing," said Air NZ CEO Christopher Luxon.
United’s new flights will add about 40% more seats on the route.
