The popular summer flights are over between Billund and Nuuk.
This is stated by Air Greenland’s commercial director Chris Shern to Sermitsiaq.
The popular summer flights are over between Billund and Nuuk.
This is stated by Air Greenland’s commercial director Chris Shern to Sermitsiaq.
Since the start in 2023, the route has been flown by the Danish airline Jettime on behalf of Air Greenland with a Boeing 737-800 aircraft with room for 189, but when Air Greenland receives its Airbus A320neo Unaaq, which is slightly smaller than the Jettime aircraft, this spring, Air Greenland will gather its Danish operations at Copenhagen Airport in Kastrup.
– Unaaq will be stationed in Copenhagen, similar to our well-known Airbus A330-800neo Tuukkaq. It will give us some economies of scale to have the planes, pilots and cabin crew together in Copenhagen, explains Chris Shern.
– We will get many more flights with our own planes out of Copenhagen – and this will consolidate Copenhagen as an international hub for Greenland. Customers all over the world will know that it is from here that you can easily get to Greenland.
Interline agreement with SAS
This does not mean that customers in the Jutland triangle area will be let down.
– We have made a so-called interline agreement with SAS, so that you can still buy a combined ticket from Billund to the Greenlandic destinations on our website. The Jutland customers also have the option of flying directly to Nuuk from Aalborg, but here we do not yet have all agreements in place.
Chris Shern acknowledges that it will be more difficult for customers to travel between Jutland and Greenland – especially on the trip to Billund, because Greenland Airports does not yet have the so-called OSS approval out of the airport in Nuuk.
This means that passengers to Billund coming from Nuuk must take their luggage on arrival in Copenhagen and go through security one more time before they can board the SAS flight to Billund.
– We know that it is difficult – and we are pushing so that the OSS approval becomes a reality. So we expect it to be a temporary problem, which will hopefully be over soon, says Chris Shern, who will not set a date for when it will happen, however.
– There is also still the option of customers going to Jutland via the summer route between Nuuk and Aalborg, because we continue to have a big focus on Jutland travelers as well. But now we are bringing together the Jutland operations in Aalborg.
Large customer base
When Air Greenland inaugurated the summer route from Billund in 2023 to Kangerlussuaq, it happened after a thorough market study.
The survey showed that in Region Central Jutland and Region Southern Denmark, which is the area near the airport in Billund, there are 8,000 ethnic Greenlanders and almost 400,000 Danes who are connected in one way or another to Greenland.
– When we analyzed our customers’ travel patterns to and from Greenland in 2019, we discovered that a large part of those who today fly between Kangerlussuaq and Copenhagen go on to Jutland, said Air Greenland’s marketing and communications manager, Katja Vahl in her speech on the red carpet outside the gate in Billund, when the Billund route had its maiden flight on 29 March 2023.
Aalborg wins
Now it is over with the direct flights between Billund and Greenland. What remains is Aalborg as the winner of the battle for the Greenlandic air passengers in Jutland.
Since 2025, there have been direct flights between Aalborg and Nuuk. The first year in a so-called codeshare collaboration between the Aarhusian travel agency Ruby Rejser and Air Greenland with two weekly departures. In the summer of this year, the route has only had one weekly departure, with a large proportion of the seats going to Ruby Rejsers’ many group travellers. The route is flown by the Danish airline Airseven with a Boeing 737-800 similar to the aircraft that Jettime has used on the Billund route.
Air Greenland is now in the process of negotiating with the airlines about the future of the summer route out of Aalborg.
– We are in the process of negotiating the flights from Aalborg. I can therefore at the moment say nothing other than that we will continue with flights out of Aalborg to Greenland. The scope has not yet been determined, says Chris Shern.
Both the Billund route and the Aalborg route have been very popular among Greenlandic families with children and pensioners – precisely because you avoid the stressful stay at the huge airport in Kastrup.
