In the summer of 2024, Air Greenland will be launching what might just be one of the coolest airline routes ever, connecting Greenland to the Canadian Arctic. I first wrote about this last week, but the flight is now on sale, so I wanted to go over all the details (thanks to Ryan W for flagging this).
In this post:
Air Greenland’s Nuuk to Iqaluit route
Air Greenland will be adding a seasonal once weekly route between Nuuk, Greenland (GOH), and Iqaluit, Canada (YFB). The 513-mile flight will operate each Wednesday in the peak summer season in both directions, and Air Greenland will use a 37-seat De Havilland Dash 8-200 for this service.
The flight will operate with the following schedule:
GL771 Nuuk to Iqaluit departing 1:45PM arriving 12:50PM
GL772 Iqaluit to Nuuk departing 1:50PM arriving 6:50PM
There’s a three hour time difference between Nuuk and Iqaluit, so that’s quite an interesting schedule, eh? The westbound flight is blocked at 2hr5min and the eastbound flight is blocked at 2hr. I was expecting fares would be higher given the type of service this is, but they start at around $230 (USD) one-way.
This route represents a resumption, as Air Greenland last served this market in 2014-2016. Here’s how Air Greenland CEO Jacob Nitter Sørensen describes this service:
“We know that there is a great desire for closer cooperation between Nunavut and Greenland and to ensure dialogue, it is natural to open a route to our neighbours to the west. We believe that this will create an even stronger basis for supporting the many business, political and cultural ties that already exist.”
“Our mission is to lift Greenland, and with the opening of the route to Iqaluit, we will greatly contribute to further opening up the country for cooperation with Inuit and neighbours to the west. It will be our fifth international route after Keflavik, Kastrup, Billund, Aalborg and now Iqaluit. The desire to visit each other in the Arctic region has increased since the last scheduled flight between the two capitals in 2014. We believe that the time and the local market are now right to resume the route.”
Air Greenland will be partnering with Canadian North to offer same-day connections to Ottawa, and other destinations. Canadian North has a large route network through the Canadian Arctic, serving 27 destinations.
The logic for this new Air Greenland route
While the Canadian Arctic and Greenland are geographically very close to one another and also have some cultural similarities, historically there hasn’t been much service between them. However, there has increasingly been talk of closer ties between the regions, given what they have in common.
In 2022, we saw an agreement signed between Nunavut and Greenland, intended to increase cooperation in the areas of culture, education, fishing, green energy, and improved mobility. Obviously this new service is a big part of that.
Even prior to that, back in 2020, Canadian North revealed its desire to launch this exact route as well. That never did end up happening, unfortunately, but now Air Greenland is stepping in.
This route is offering just 37 seats per direction per week, so this is a very low capacity route. Heck, over the course of the entire season, at most a few hundred people will take this flight. I’m curious what the passenger breakdown ends up being between those exclusively traveling between the two airports, those connecting to Ottawa, and those connecting to other destinations in North America.
From an aviation geek standpoint, I can’t think of a much cooler flight than this, and I’d definitely be choosing a window seat on this service.
Bottom line
In the summer of 2024, Air Greenland will be launching a once weekly seasonal flight between Nuuk, Greenland, and Iqaluit, Canada. The flight will be operated by a Dash 8, with a capacity of just 37 seats. What a cool new flight, and it just reinforces how close Greenland is to Canada.
What do you make of Air Greenland’s new route to Canada?
BOOKED!
Air Greenland should go big or go home.
Doesn't ANA have a few A380's lying around they can borrow?
Hire Akbar al-Baker as CEO.
Fly it into Albany for onward connectivity on Baltia's route network.
ePiC... gawd. Get a life, Ben.
honey, calm down. Seriously. And Greenland is not - and will not be - part of the United States of Homelessness.
Greenland's pronouns are 'bliv/væk'.
Are you quite alright, Sara?
I, too, like to insert faux-Briticisms like 'quite' to sound smart.
Where are you actually from, Sara? And have you never heard anyone but a Briton use the word “quite”?
Honey, you sound like you’re having an episode.
Yeah, you seem stable.
now, *that* is a walking red flag
Don't believe you, about not one good seat for photography. How about row 1 or the very back of the aircraft. I would think you would be OK with either of those 2 choices.
As I said, you’ll have to play with angles to make a shot work. Row 2 to 9 were same. Row 1 could be bit different, but I highly doubt it.
Very cool. We flew Canadian North last summer from Ottawa to Iqaluit to Pond Inlet to see the floe edge. Iqaluit is a cool town and this would certainly be a neat route to get to Greenland. I hope to visit someday!
Please don't! Thanks! American "tourists" are not welcome.
Over this summer, my wife and I took 4 flights on Dash 8-200 and after sitting, all over, I can vouch, there isn’t a single good window seat for photography. The engines/propellers are very long as they also house wheels. Some smart maneuvering will get you few pics, however, I’ll easily swap my Eithad Residence for a seat on this flight or for that matter any flight to Nuuk and Ilulissat. The landscape flying in...
Over this summer, my wife and I took 4 flights on Dash 8-200 and after sitting, all over, I can vouch, there isn’t a single good window seat for photography. The engines/propellers are very long as they also house wheels. Some smart maneuvering will get you few pics, however, I’ll easily swap my Eithad Residence for a seat on this flight or for that matter any flight to Nuuk and Ilulissat. The landscape flying in is just mind blowing.
Coupke of interesting points about Dash 8-200 - when flight is nor sold out, it is not uncommon for the FA to move people around for weight management. And the last row has 5 seats - 1 seat in middle at the end of the aisle.
If the route returns in 2025, I’ll be on it.
I explored Iqaluit / Yellowknife / Inuvik / Tuktoyaktuk / Whitehorse this summer on inexpensive Aeroplan tickets. Fantastic trip, aside from the mandatory evacuation from the Yellowknife wildfires.
Iqaluit might be boring if one only stays in the town. I visited a town in Alaska and, besides the appeal of oddity, there wasn't much to see.
Anyone coming from Nuuk and wants to travel south same day make sure you book your flights to ottawa 2 weeks in advance as itll be cheaper if you book to ottawa from iqaluit couple days before or same day flights can cost from 1500 to $2000 one way.
Flew this way back in 2012. I think the actual dates Air Greenland did this summer route were 2012 to 2016, and it's a brief 90 minute flight. If you want to connect onward you'll have to connect in Nuuk to Air Greenland's hub airport at Kanjerlussuaq. However assuming there are no weather delays it's an infinitely faster way to get from North America to Greenland vs flying via Copenhagen.
We also met absolutely...
Flew this way back in 2012. I think the actual dates Air Greenland did this summer route were 2012 to 2016, and it's a brief 90 minute flight. If you want to connect onward you'll have to connect in Nuuk to Air Greenland's hub airport at Kanjerlussuaq. However assuming there are no weather delays it's an infinitely faster way to get from North America to Greenland vs flying via Copenhagen.
We also met absolutely zero people in Greenland who had come via Iqaluit, and were quite a curiousity!
This might be one of the quickest (and hopefully) cheapest ways to get to Nuuk. you could use aeroplan miles to fly to iqaluit and then pay for the Greenland leg… usually flying from Copenhagen means you land at the airport with a longer runway… maybe Iceland is a tad better for connections, but this is awesome
Given how expensive it is to fly in northern Canada, I'm very curious to see how this is priced. Obviously those other routes aren't operated by Air Greenland, so maybe this will be in its own ballpark?
Looks like this is a resumption of a service operated a decade ago. Wondering if this time around the economics will be any better.
Wow, it would be such a dream to take this flight, ands then spend a week or more exploring at least a part of Canadian North's route network, not to mention Greenland itself! I'm usually an aisle guy, but the adventure would be all windows for me.