United Airlines inaugurates flights between Washington and Ghana
Last night, United Airlines launched the first flight of its new service to Accra, Ghana, from Washington DC, United States, operated by Boeing 787-8 registered N27901. The carrier will now operate a three-weekly service to Accra from Dulles International. Flight UA996 will depart Dulles International Airport at 18:15 every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday and land at Kotoka International Airport at 08:40 the next morning.
On return, UA997 is expected to depart Accra at 23:45 on Monday, Thursday and Saturday and arrive in the Washington area at 06:30 the next day.
There is a large Ghanaian diaspora, with around four million people with ties to the country across the world. Notably, the United States has over 116,000 Ghanaians living in the country. This figure gives the United States the third largest Ghanaian population in the world. So, many people will want to fly to and from Ghana as a result of the challenges of the pandemic.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Chairman and CEO Jack Potter explained how valuable this service is to the Ghanaian capital. This operation is one of several direct flights to cities around the world from Dulles.
The Chicago-based carrier followed Delta Air Lines with its earlier arrival in Accra from New York the day before. Several other international powers also serve the city. For example, Qatar Airways, Air France, Turkish Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Air Côte d’Ivoire, British Airways, Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, KLM, Kenya Airways, TAP Air Portugal and EgyptAir all fly to the airport. In addition to the presence of Africa World Airlines at the airport, more than three million passengers from all over the world pass through it.
