DENVER — Nonstop flights between Denver International Airport (DIA) and Tokyo's Narita International Airport have returned after a nearly three-year hiatus.
DIA said the United Airlines flights returned Saturday. They will operate three days a week through March 25. Starting March 26, service will operate daily onboard a 257-seat Boeing 787-9.
DIA said the flights will have 17% more capacity than they did in the summer of 2019.
The airport said since the inaugural flight on June 10, 2013, United has carried more than 900,000 passengers on more than 4,800 flights between Denver and Tokyo/Narita.
The United flight is the only nonstop route between Denver and Tokyo.
"Service into Narita provides convenient one-stop access to key Asian markets through United’s joint venture partner All Nippon Airways (ANA), also a member of the Star Alliance," the airport said in a news release. "ANA operates a robust hub network at Narita which offers connections to dozens of cities in the broader Asia Pacific region."
The Denver Business Journal reports United began the route in 2013 after city business leaders worked for 27 years to land it. At the time, then-Gov. John Hickenlooper predicted it would generate “hundreds of millions of dollars in economic development.”
Other international routes serve Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe and Mexico.
In February, the airport, city and a city councilmember's office spent more than $114,000 in public funds on a city delegation's trip to Egypt and Ethiopia as part of an effort to attract a direct air link to North Africa.
DIA said the delegation met with local political leaders in Addis Ababa and Cairo and representatives of airlines there to try to convince them to start flights to Denver.
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