Home to a population of just over 56,000 people but spanning over 836,330 square miles, the autonomous region of Greenland is widely considered to be the most sparsely populated country in the world.
An overseas territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland is located between Europe and North America at a six-hour flight from Copenhagen and attracts the most adventurous tourists looking to see icefjords, witness Aurora Borealis and hike in extreme winter conditions. Only two airlines currently offer flights there: Air Iceland and Air Greenland.
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The latter airline offers flights to the Greenland capital of Nuuk both from Copenhagen and, at different points of the year, certain North American capitals like New York and Chicago.
‘Two towns with no onward connection by road anywhere’
Last year, Air Greenland also announced a new seasonal flight between Nuuk and the Canadian province of Nunavut that became a contender for an award as the year’s “sexiest route” due to the remoteness of both destinations.
While the distance between Nuuk and Iqaluit is just 514 miles, both towns are in extremely remote Arctic regions that serve a very select group of residents and adventurers.
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The first flight took place on June 23, 2024 and will run weekly on Wednesdays on a De Havilland Canada DHC-8 fixed-wing plane until Oct. 23. In announcing the new route, local authorities spoke of the agreement between “Air Greenland and airline Canadian North to connect selected destinations in their route network.”
The flight is scheduled in a way to link it to same-day flight connections from Canadian cities like Montreal and Ottawa.
“At first glance, the flight seems capricious — almost certainly the only scheduled airline launch in 2024 to link two towns with no onward connection by road anywhere,” Alex Robertson Textor, a Financial Times reporter who recently took it, writes.
“And yet the route could also be a key milestone in Greenlandic history. In the blink of an eye, a journey that took two days and cost about DKr35,000 ($5,140 USD) return [through charter airlines] has been cut to two hours and around DKr4,500 ($660 USD).”
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These are some of the other flights to remote destinations to launch this year
While seemingly counterintuitive to good financial decisions due to the low numbers of passengers they can serve, flights to remote destinations can be surprisingly profitable because those who travel to the area have few options to choose from.
Earlier this year, Fiji Airways asked the U.S. Department of Transportation for permission to start running a new direct flight between Dallas-Forth-Worth and Nadi International Airport in Fiji.
A year earlier in 2023, local airline Atlantic Airways started running a new seasonal route to the Faroe Islands from New York’s Stewart International Airport.
The overseas Danish territory is home to equally extreme arctic conditions. This is a seasonal route that runs once a week between August and October on an Airbus A320neo (EADSF) plane.
“Whether it’s hiking up majestic mountains, bird watching, or sailing through stunning fjords, the Faroe Islands are a paradise for adventure seekers,” Atlantic Airways writes in marketing the flight.
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