Iqaluit-Nuuk flight bookings open
Canadian North, Air Greenland partnership to offer direct flights from June 26 to Oct. 23, cost $392 one-way
Air Greenland’s Dash 8 aircraft, seen above, will fly up to 37 passengers directly between Iqaluit and Nuuk, Greenland over the summer and fall. Both Air Greenland and Canadian North announced booking availability for the flights has opened. (File photo)
Air Greenland and Canadian North have made it official by announcing direct flights between Iqaluit and Nuuk, Greenland can be booked online.
The service will begin June 26 and go until Oct. 23, and will cost $392 one-way, Canadian North said in a news release Friday.
Service between the capital cities of Nunavut and Greenland, which are about 800 kilometres apart, will be offered once a week on Wednesdays. There will be 37 seats on each flight.
Air Greenland will operate the direct flights on its Dash 8 aircraft.
Canadian North will offer connecting flights to Ottawa and Kuujjuaq for Iqaluit passengers.
The flights are two hours, according to Air Greenland’s booking site. Nuuk-bound flight will depart Iqaluit at 3:15 p.m. on Wednesdays. Meanwhile, the Iqaluit-bound flights are scheduled to leave Nuuk at 2:55 p.m.
Canadian North and Air Greenland executives pose in Nuuk, Greenland for the announcement that passengers can now book flights between Nuuk and Iqaluit. From left are Air Greenland executive chairman Malik Hegelund Olsen, Canadian North president and chief executive officer Shelly De Caria, Air Greenland chief executive officer Jacob Nitter Sørensen and Canadian North executive chairman Johnny Adams. (Photo courtesy of Air Greenland and Canadian North)
Flights can now be booked directly on Air Greenland’s website. Customers using Canadian North’s website to book a flight to Greenland are redirected to Air Greenland’s site.
Approximately three hours after the two companies announced bookings for direct flights had opened, there were only two seats left on the first direct flight from Iqaluit to Nuuk according to Air Greenland’s website.
This flight is a continuation of a 2022 agreement to increase connection between Nunavut and Greenland, addressing mobility especially, the joint release between the two companies stated.
It has been months in the making. The companies announced last October they would be implementing the service to run between June and October.
Earlier this week, an Air Greenland spokesperson told Nunatsiaq News the companies were waiting for the Canadian government’s final approval.
On Monday, Canadian North vice-president Trevor Wilde said more information would be coming out “in the coming days.”
Also on Monday, Canadian North CEO Shelly De Caria posted on Instagram that she was in Nuuk. Friday’s news release included a picture of De Caria and other executives of the two companies.
“We’re excited to boost tourism, encourage regional and cultural collaboration and drive economic partnership through this groundbreaking partnership,” De Caria said in the release.
Canadian citizens will need passports to enter Greenland.
The release said that if demand for this direct flight is good, there is a potential to expand the service.
A minimum of a week is such a long obligation. Too bad it weren’t just 3-4 days.
Unless you have family in nuuk, that will be a very long and expensive week. Although you could fly or take the ferry to visit other communities.
That could be a long time to spend in Nuuk but travel within Greenland is much cheaper than it is in Nunavut or even within southern Canada, so it’s possible to go on to Ilulissat or South Greenland, for example, by ferry or plane. Or you can fly on to Iceland (usually a few flights a week) or Copenhagen (daily) for a fraction of the time and cost of flying on a dreary, crumbling Canadian North plane through Ottawa-Toronto to Europe.
Kroner, kroner and kroner 💰💰💰
That’s Danish for Bonuses, bonuses and bonuses
It’s great that this exists. The way these airlines chose to structure this route confuses me though and sets it up for failure. Much of the demand for it seems to come from Nunavut but there will be little incentive for people in Greenland to use the route. With the late departure out of Nuuk and extremely long layover in Iqaluit, it will still be much cheaper and faster to fly from Nuuk through Iceland to most North American destinations. Iqaluit is a struggling and depressed town and is not set up for tourism. It’s not even set up for people walking on foot. The late arrival in Ottawa would require an overnight to travel on, which most tourists would probably prefer to do (New York, Toronto, Montreal, etc). These issues could be helped by adjusting the departure time out of Nuuk and shortening the layover in Iqaluit.
You can’t really run it any other way as the Air Greenland flight has to arrive before the Canadian North flight and then depart afterwards to provide northbound and southbound connections. You also need time for Customs and Immigration. There’s also a two hour time change between Nuuk and Iqaluit.
The better way to structure the route would be to ensure that the flight from Nuuk lands before the afternoon flight to Ottawa, instead of making people endure Iqaluit for six hours and flying down on the evening flight. For a fraction of the time and cost, people flying from Nuuk can fly to Keflavik, Iceland (a three hour flight, compared to a two hour flight to Iqaluit) with a one or two hour layover and be on a jet to New York, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto or Seattle, or elsewhere the same day. You will not be able to reach those destinations same day on this route, will be paying twice the cost, and will have to endure the awful taxi drivers and other depressing aspects of Iqaluit for hours long layovers both ways.
Everybody is an airline critic. good or bad, let them run their own airlines.. shhh negativity is both bad and a joke…