Canadian North says it has agreed a deal to launch scheduled flights between Greenland, Iqaluit and Ottawa.
In a press release, the Inuit-owned airline said a partnership with Air Greenland would begin in the summer of 2024. Seat will go on sale in the new year.
The route will operate between June and October. Air Greenland said flights from Nuuk, Greenland to Iqaluit would take place once weekly, on Wednesdays. Canadian North will operate the service between Iqaluit and Ottawa.
Passengers will be able to book a single ticket from Ottawa to Nuuk and back. Canadian North labelled the route its “first-ever international flight.”
“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,” Air Greenland boss Jacob Nitter Sørensen was quoted as saying.
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“The new route to Greenland embodies Canadian North’s dedication to fostering connectivity and cultural exchange, creating more opportunities for discovery and interaction across the Arctic,” Canadian North stated.
Canadian North flights between Yellowknife and Iqaluit were announced earlier in the summer.
The airline had been exploring the possibility of a Greenland connection for years, signing a letter of intent in 2020.
“We’d like to connect communities in Iceland, Greenland and Canada,” then-president Michael Rodyniuk told Cabin Radio in December last year.
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“And from our easternmost point on our network, coming out of Iqaluit, Nuuk in Greenland is just across the water.”
Rodyniuk, who joined Canadian North in July 2022, was replaced as the airline’s president and chief executive by an interim appointment, Shelly De Caria, on Monday. The reason for the change was not made clear and no timeline for the appointment of a new chief executive was released.
On LinkedIn, Rodyniuk framed the announcement as “passing the torch to a new leader.”
