Air Greenland sets longer season for Iqaluit-Nuuk flights
Airline expands on pilot project launched with Canadian North in 2024
Canadian North and Air Greenland are expanding on last year’s pilot project of a route between Iqaluit-Nuuk, offering weekly departures and same-day connector flights from April 2 until Oct. 22. (File photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Direct flights between Iqaluit and Nuuk, Greenland, will return this year and be available over a longer schedule.
Planes will depart from each city every Wednesday for the summer season from April 2 until Oct. 22, Air Greenland announced on social media last week. Through the airline’s partnership with Canadian North, there will continue to be same-day connections available to Ottawa, Montreal and Kuujjuaq.
Last September, Air Greenland CEO Jacob Nitter Sorensen announced at the Nunavut Trade Show that the company would continue offering flights between Iqaluit and Nuuk in 2025 and hoped to start the season earlier.
The airline launched the route linking the capital cities last June as a pilot project with Canadian North, reviving the direct service that Air Greenland cancelled in 2012.
Last October, United Airlines also confirmed it will provide a new twice-weekly direct route from New York City to Nuuk beginning June 14, 2025. It was one of eight new routes the airline announced.
John Gradek, an aviation analyst and lecturer at McGill University in Montreal, said he doesn’t believe the United Airlines route will compete with Canadian North in carrying passengers bound for Greenland.
“I don’t think Canadian North has anything to fear about this competition showing up out of Newark” N.J., said Gradek.
“There’s not really a lot of connection feed on the Canadian North operation into Iqaluit to take advantage of that Nuuk service.”
Gradek said he believes Canadian North’s market focuses on Iqaluit and the surrounding region to make its operation successful, whereas United is banking on approximately 100 American cities to make connections for its flight to Greenland.
In November, the Nuuk International Airport unveiled an expanded runaway stretching 2,200 metres, allowing larger aircraft to land.
“The runway extension and the investment that they’ve made into the new infrastructure opens up a number of opportunities for the Greenland government to really enhance the commercial viability of services to and from Nuuk,” said Gradek.
He added the investment by the Greenland government into the airport, as well as new routes from airline carriers, may be an example of “testing the waters” to gauge the market demand and commercial viability of traffic to Nuuk.
A spokesperson for Air Greenland could not be reached for comment.
The question is how energetically Air Greenland, and Canadian North, will _market_ the flights — in Greenland, in Nunavut, and in the rest of Canada. They did a seriously poor job of doing so last year. We need this route to succeed!
The real competition to this flight isn’t United, it is Icelandair that offers service from almost anywhere in canada to Nuuk for less than half of what Canadian North or United are charging