United Airlines is planning a global expansion spanning Senegal to Mongolia and Greenland to Palau in 2025 to draw travelers already uninterested in the beaten streets of Paris, Rome and Tokyo.
Beginning May 21, United will fly thrice weekly between its Newark, New Jersey, hub and Palermo, Sicily; On May 16, it’ll depart 4 days every week non-stop to Faro in Portugal's Algarve region. A 3-day flight to the Portuguese island of Madeira is planned for June seventh. and on May 31, non-stop flights will begin to Bilbao in northern Spain, destinations that may strengthen existing service to Italy, Spain and Portugal.
The 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 are looking for something different,” Patrick Quayle, senior vice chairman of world network planning and alliances at United, told reporters.
Experimenting with routes makes United a standout amongst U.S. and global airlines which have largely stuck to easy additions. The expansion is an element of United's “where the puck goes” strategy, Quayle said, as the corporate wants to make sure it’s all things to all travelers, offering destinations from U.S. cities like Corpus Christi, Texas, to Cape Town, South Africa.
United plans to start every day nonstop service from Washington Dulles International Airport to Dakar, Senegal, on May 23. The flight from Tokyo Narita Airport to Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) is scheduled to start on May 1st. United has increased service from Tokyo and can offer nonstop flights from there to Koror, Palau year-round.
Not all goals work. United had suspended its nonstop service to Bergen, Norway, in 2023 on account of a scarcity of demand, but Quayle said the airline had room to expand further to far-flung destinations and a various network could help drive signups for lucrative rewards to spice up bank cards.
“The more unique content, the more we differentiate ourselves from our competitors and the more people will spend with United,” Quayle said.
United had originally planned to start service to Faro, Portugal, this yr, but needed to postpone it on account of a security review by the Federal Aviation Administration, which the agency accomplished earlier this month without finding “significant safety issues.”
United also plans to expand flights from the West Coast, but didn’t provide details Thursday.
image credit : www.cnbc.com