United Airlines plans to launch service from San Francisco International Airport to Barcelona—just in time for a popular music festival, Primavera Sound.
The airline has begun selling daily tickets between SFO and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN). Those direct flights from SFO to BCN will be the only ones by an American carrier. The nonstop trips will start on May 23, 2024, and continue through Oct. 25, 2024, United spokesperson Justin Hammel told The Standard. Tickets went on sale Dec. 6.
United already handles daily flights to Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Málaga and Tenerife and is planning service to Barcelona from Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. The Dulles-Barcelona flight will begin on Feb. 15, 2024.
United will operate its SFO flight as UA-672, leaving San Francisco Airport at 5:25 p.m. Pacific Time and landing in Barcelona at 1:55 p.m. the next day after 11.5 hours in the air.
The Barcelona return flight, dubbed UA-673, will depart around 5:20 p.m. local time and arrive at SFO around 8:25 p.m. Pacific time the same day, for a flight time of about 12 and a half hours.
Your ticket, purchased in time, should get you to Barcelona if you're attending 2024's Primavera Sound music festival, with a lineup featuring dozens of top-flight artists, including Phoenix, Pulp, Vampire Weekend, Justice, Lana Del Rey, the National, Disclosure, SZA, PJ Harvey, Mitski, FKA Twigs and Charli XCX.
Tickets to the festival, which runs from May 29 to June 2, 2024, currently start at 265 euros (about $285) and top out at 495 euros (about $533), with a second round of tickets coming soon.
United also plans to launch additional trans-Atlantic flights, including a route to Rome, Italy, from SFO starting May 2.