Los Angeles Could Land in Kansai at 6:50

United wants flight UA801 to leave Los Angeles at 2:40 p.m. and reach Kansai at 6:50 p.m. the next day, every day, on a Boeing 787-9. The first one on the schedule leaves March 27, 2027.

Coming home, UA802 would leave Kansai at 8:50 p.m. on March 28 and reach Los Angeles at 3:25 p.m. Kansai Airports calls March 28 the start. That is the day the first plane from Los Angeles lands, and the day the first plane leaves Osaka.

United flew this route until 1999, and put tickets for the new one on sale August 25. The airline and the airport both say the clock can still change, and that governments have to approve the flights. As of today, March 27 and March 28 are still the days on the schedule.

This Thursday, Japan Airlines flight JL69 is scheduled out of Los Angeles at 2:30 p.m. and into Kansai at 7:10 p.m. Friday, also on a 787-9. United’s version would leave at 2:40 and land at 6:50, twenty minutes ahead of that arrival.

Japan Airlines already flies Los Angeles to Kansai. United’s plan adds a second flight, every day.

San Francisco already has a United flight into Kansai. Los Angeles would be the second mainland city, and United says it would then be the only airline flying Osaka from two mainland cities. If your trip starts in the Bay Area, Kansai is already on United’s map.

From Kansai, the Haruka is the express into town. On this month’s weekday timetable, trains through the middle of the day take 47 minutes to Osaka station and 80 minutes to Kyoto. The last one leaves the airport at 10:16 p.m. and is in Kyoto at 11:32. A 6:50 landing can still make that train, if immigration and the bags move.

Visitors on a foreign passport can buy JR West’s discounted one-way before the trip. From November 1, that ticket is 1,900 yen to Osaka or Shin-Osaka and 2,700 yen to Kyoto. A Japanese passport pays the ordinary fare.

Haneda or Narita still leaves Kyoto on the other side of the country, on a domestic flight or a train into Tokyo and then west. The Kansai landing spends the evening on the Haruka.

March 27 is the Los Angeles departure to watch. Book the first night in Kyoto or Osaka for that landing only once the approval is real. Until then, Japan Airlines is the flight that can put you there.