BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK

The local airport will gain a new flight each weekday to Washington, D.C., starting Aug. 18, the airport announced today.

United Express, the regional jet subsidiary of United Airlines, will add an evening flight out of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport to Washington Dulles International Airport.

United has departing flights to Washington seven days a week at 6 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. The new flight will leave at 7:35 p.m. daily, but the 2:30 p.m. flight will move to 2:10 p.m. and will fly daily except for Saturday.

United Express will use a 50-seat jet aircraft. United Airlines and United Express operate almost 250 flights daily out of Dulles. Almost 220 are daily to 85 airports across the United States, including frequent daily service to top business travel markets in metropolitan New York City, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Los Angeles, the airport said in a statement. United also operates 30 daily nonstop flights to 34 international destinations from Dulles, including Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada.

Airport executive director Carl Beardsley Jr. said he has ongoing discussions with United and many other airlines about expanding service.

“We are really excited to have United Express provide additional service to our area business and leisure air travelers,” Beardsley said. “The additional Washington Dulles service will complement United’s existing service at AVP (the local airport) as customer demand continues to grow.”

Besides Washington, United Express has up to two daily departing flights to Chicago O’Hare International Airport.