COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Air Greenland, the Arctic island's main airline, said Monday it would open a route to Baltimore, its first to the United States.
The airline, owned by the Greenland government will start flying once a week beginning in May 2007 to the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
A Boeing 757 will fly the route during the May-September season, Per Karlsmose, sales manager with Air Greenland, told The Associated Press. It will take off from the Arctic island's international airport in Kangerlussuaq, a former U.S. Air Force on Greenland's west coast.
"Baltimore with its hinterland including New York, Washington and Philadelphia is very attractive to us," Karlsmose said. "We also know that Americans seek peaceful places with no terror threat and Greenland is the spot for that."
So far, the main gateway to Greenland has been through the Danish capital, Copenhagen, as well as through Iceland during the summer months.
Some 30,000 tourists visit the island every year, 90% of them coming from Denmark and others mostly from elsewhere in Europe.
Greenland, populated mostly by aboriginal Inuit, is home to 56,000 people.
