Mittarfik Nuuk ; Danish: The airport is a technical base and focus city for Air Greenland , the flag carrier airline of Greenland, linking the capital with several towns in western and south-western part of the country, including the airline hub at Kangerlussuaq Airport. With connections to Iceland , Nuuk Airport is also one of six international airports in Greenland but serves only destinations within Greenland and Iceland.
In the early s, seaplanes of the newly established Air Greenland landed in Nuuk Port. In , the airline invested in developing a more robust fleet based on the large Sikorsky S helicopter, which continued to serve the town for the next four decades, even after the construction of an airport in Nuuk capable of serving the short takeoff and landing STOL de Havilland Canada Dash 7 aircraft, which dominated at the airport since the s. The airport was constructed to serve the largest town in Greenland, yet due to space constraints at the location in a mountainous area and problems with the weather, it is unable to service large airliners or flights reaching Denmark or other countries.
In connection with events are chartered aircraft or VIP flights unable to reach Nuuk. A change to a small local aircraft normally at Kangerlussuaq Airport is always needed. A large expansion of the airport has been controversial due to the approach near the urbanized area of the outlying districts of Nuuk, although the issue continues to be a subject of internal debate in Greenland.
The tragedy was one of the factors leading to the decision to invest in a helicopter fleet. The Sikorsky S N machinesβstill in use in [4] βproved to be a more reliable mode of transport for the city, providing exclusive service for the Nuuk city for more than a decadeβfrom the purchase date in until the late s.
Even in the later era of the fixed-wing , turboprop plane domination, the SN helicopters continued to link Nuuk with the smaller town of Paamiut , until the airport was built there in , replacing the old heliport.
