Victorian aviation and tourism stakeholders were out in force for the arrival of United’s first international B787-9 service, from Los Angeles on Tuesday 28 October.

Not only did the occasion mark the start of United’s first international B787-9 flight, it was also the start of a new six-times weekly direct service for Melbourne. Previously United operated to Melbourne via Sydney, with a B777-200 aircraft. The service landed in Melbourne after notching up the longest commercial service for a B787-9, at 7,927 miles and 15 hours and 45 minutes.

You can find out more about the longest and shortest 787 flights in our special Routesonline report here.

Los Angeles – Melbourne was one of four new Pacific routes that United launched this week. It also added service between San Francisco and Tokyo Haneda, Guam and Seoul and Guam and Shanghai.

Dave Hilfman, United’s senior vice president of sales flew into Melbourne on the inaugural flight. Despite the 15-hour plus flight, Hilfman was in high spirits and told Routesonline that United’s network team were hard at work analysing future routes for the Dreamliners.

“We are looking all over the world at what routes will deliver us maximum profits. New opportunities will be revealed soon,” he said.

Melbourne Airport’s CEO, Chris Woodruff, added: “Victoria is Australia’s home of the Dreamliner with components of the state of the art aircraft manufactured here, so we are pleased to welcome another Dreamliner to Melbourne Airport.”

While the arrival of United’s B787-9 is cause for celebration, Melbourne has lost direct flights to Los Angeles from Virgin Australia. Earlier this year the Australian airline announced it would withdraw its three-times weekly B777-300ER Los Angeles flights from Melbourne, in favour of daily service from Brisbane to Los Angeles. It had previously operated the Brisbane route four-times weekly.

United has operated to Australia since 1979. It operates daily flights from Sydney to San Francisco and Los Angeles, in addition to six-times weekly service from Melbourne and Los Angeles. United also flies twice-weekly flights from Cairns to Guam.