United plans flights to Greenland, Mongolia and northern Spain in search for next ‘it’ destination

United Airlines is plotting a 2025 international expansion that spans Senegal to Mongolia and Greenland to Palau, a bid to win over travelers who have already had their fill of the well-trodden streets of Paris, Rome and Tokyo.

Starting May 21, United will fly three times a week between its Newark, New Jersey, hub to Palermo, Sicily; on May 16, it will launch nonstops four days a week to Faro in Portugal’s Algarve region; on June 7 it plans three-days-a-week-service to Portugal’s Madeira Island; and on May 31 it’s starting nonstop flights to Bilbao in northern Spain, destinations that will beef up existing service to Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Its inaugural flight between Newark and Nuuk, Greenland, will begin June 14, United said Thursday.

“The savvy traveler has been to Paris, Rome and Madrid so many times that they’re looking for something different,” Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of global network planning and alliances, told reporters.

The experimentation with routes makes United a standout among U.S. and global airlines that have largely stuck with bread-and-butter additions. The expansion is part of United’s strategy to “skate where the puck is going,” Quayle said, as the company wants to make sure it can be all things to all travelers, offering destinations from U.S. cities like Corpus Christi, Texas, to Cape Town, South Africa.

United is planning to launch daily, nonstop service to Dakar, Senegal, from Washington Dulles International Airport on May 23. Service from Tokyo’s Narita airport to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, is set to begin May 1. United has been beefing up service from Tokyo and will offer year-round nonstop flights to Koror, Palau, from there.

Not all destinations work. United had discontinued a nonstop flight to Bergen, Norway, in 2023 due to a lack of demand, but Quayle said the airline has wiggle room to continue expanding to far-flung destinations and that a diverse network can help drive sign-ups for lucrative rewards credit cards.

“The more unique content, the more we differentiate ourselves from our competitors and the more people are going to spend on United,” Quayle said.

United had originally planned to start the Faro, Portugal, service this year but was forced to delay it because of a Federal Aviation Administration safety review, which the agency ended earlier this month without identifying any “significant safety issues.”

United is also planning to expand flying from the West Coast, but it didn’t disclose any details on Thursday.