ENTHUSIAST ’ S CORNER Greenland times a week from Copenhagen in winter . As there are just four hours of daylight in late autumn , the usual arrival time in Nuuk was moved from 10:10 to 12:35 .
Hours before , almost all of Nuuk ’ s 20,000 residents had gathered at the airport . The city ’ s shops were closed and the empty streets looked deserted . All parking spaces at the airport had to be closed due to overcrowding . The biggest traffic jam in Greenland ’ s history formed around the new terminal in a nation with a huge territory , but no road network between its isolated coastal settlements .
Finally , the A330-800 approached runway 22 low from the north . Amid the cheers and applause of thousands of onlookers , it flew above the heads of the enthusiastic spectators . A few minutes later , the bright red wide-body landed on runway 04 . As the plane taxied to its parking position , the crew of four waved small Greenlandic flags from the open cockpit side windows . The obligatory water salute from the fire engines , positioned on the side and honking loudly , unfortunately had to be cancelled due to the extremely low temperatures of the day . The day before , the temperature had been a bitter -20 ° C ! At least , the low sun peeked out briefly from behind the slopes of the surrounding mountains .
From the 2025 summer flight schedule , Air Greenland , the only jet operator to date , will face strong competition from other airlines that want to profit from the growing tourism . United Airlines ( UA ) plans to fly twice a week from New York Newark with Boeing 737-8s and , after decades of voluntary absence , SAS ( SK ) hopes to be able to feed a number of passengers from Air Greenland into its Copenhagen hub three times a week . Of course , Icelandair ( FI ), the only foreign scheduled carrier in Greenland to date , will also switch from small Dash 8s to jets , making the three-hour non-stop flight to Keflavik a thing of the past .
www . airwaysmag . com AIRWAYS MAGAZINE MARCH 2025 19