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United airplanes are seen at the Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, Unitted States on July 16, 2024.

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.

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