Airline focus: Air Greenland

lucasiu — Fri, 08 Nov 2002 12:43:02 GMT

Air Greenland is probably the airline with worst operating conditions, as Greenland has over 80% of its land covered by ice cap, and almost all small towns / villages do not have airports, and have only heliports. There are only 8 airports in Greenland, only only 2 of them jet capable. This explains why Air Greenland has many helicopters, but only one B757 and one A330!

It was founded by SAS and the mining company "Kryolitselskabet". In 1962 the Greenland Provincial and the Danish state became co-owners. This is the only option, as Air Greenland has very few passengers (only 200,000 passenger times per year), but serves land of over 2 million sq km, and hence extremely high cost.

Its fleet consists of many helicopters, like 8 aging 24-seat S-61N, Bell 212, Bell 206, MD500, as well as Dash-7 fixed wings.

The most interesting words from its website is 'Air Greenland must be the only airline in the world whose main competition is the dog sledge!'

Reference websites:
http://www.greenland-guide.gl/gla/about/default.htm
http://www.greenland-guide.gl/gla/about/lifeline.htm
http://www.greenland-guide.gl/gla/about/profile.htm

General Aviation

Airline focus: Air Greenland