Air Greenland has announced plans to launch services to Nunavut, Iqaluit as well as giving passengers to connect onwards to Ottawa through Canadian North.
This will be the fifth international destination for the carrier after Keflavik, Kastrup, Billund & Aalborg.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
Air Greenland To Launch Iqaluit Route…
It is understood that this service will be operated by the carrier’s Dash 8 aircraft, and will operate on a once-weekly basis every Wednesday.
The service will begin operating from June 26 next year, and continue all of the way through to October 23, 2024.
Jacob Nitter Sørensen, CEO of Air Greenland commented on this new route to Iqaluit:
“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”,
Offering Same-Day Connection to Ottawa With Canadian North…
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Within this route launch to Iqaluit, Air Greenland has also announced that via an interlining agreement signed with Canadian North, passengers will be able to go as far as Ottawa as a result of this on a single ticket.
Sørensen added to this saying:
“I am very pleased that we have also succeeded in establishing a collaboration with Canadian North, so that travellers can easily book tickets all the way to Ottawa and other destinations in the region.”
“It will be exciting to follow the development, and we look forward to both sending residents to the west and receiving guests from both Nunavut and Canada”.
Johnny Adams, Chairman of the Board at Canadian North also commented on this interlining agreement:
“This initiative reflects our shared vision for fostering a rich cultural exchange among Canada, Nunavut, and Greenland, and we look forward to welcoming travellers to partake in this exchange, enriching their lives with the diverse and unique traditions of these captivating regions.”
Will Demand Being At Capacity Become an Issue for this Route?
Back in December 2022, AviationSource sat down with Sørensen, where he discussed a range of items ongoing at the airline at that time.
One of the issues that the airline is having is that the region is at full capacity in terms of demand for travel into the country with Air Greenland, especially from Ottawa.
“The situation in Greenland at the moment is that the capacity, especially in the Summer season, is maxed out.”
“So even though we could bring in more people, and there is definitely a demand for it, we can’t support more people coming to Greenland at the moment.”
“As we get closer to the opening of new airports and more projects seeing the light of day, then investor confidence will increase as the capacity offering increases in due course.”
“So I think it’s just going to be a sort of chicken and egg thing. Once the airports are there, the investors will come, and we will see an increase in capacity for the airline.”
“So I think it’s just going to follow a sort of natural progression, really.”
Therefore, a route like this to Iqaluit, and the onward connection to Ottawa is important, because clearly the airline has managed to find space to facilitate the potential demand that could come out of this.
Looking ahead, all eyes will be on them to see how this new route performs next year, and whether something like this could become a catalyst for investment into the Greenland region.
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