Greenland has opened a new international airport at Ilulissat, on its west coast, in a bid to draw tourists from further afield, Hiru News reported on Saturday, citing the Associated Press.
The first international flight, from Copenhagen in Denmark to Ilulissat, was operated last Thursday — 29 October. The Greenland government has presented the airport as part of a wider effort to expand the territory’s tourism industry.
The economic case
Greenland’s economy remains heavily dependent on fishing, and diversifying and strengthening it is a stated aim of the programme. The territory is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark and, as Hiru’s filing notes, is pursuing the prospect of eventual independence — a context in which broadening the revenue base carries political as well as economic weight.
Ilulissat sits beside a UNESCO-listed icefjord and is already one of northern Greenland’s principal tourist destinations; until now reaching it from outside Greenland required connecting flights.
The opening follows the same approach taken in the capital. CNN reported in November 2024 that a new international airport had opened at Nuuk, with Air Greenland basing an Airbus A330neo there for a Copenhagen route, and that further airports were planned to open in the north and south by the end of 2026. Ilulissat is one of those.
A note on the headline
Hiru’s English-language URL describes Greenland as set “to build” the airport. Its own Sinhala text says the airport has opened (විවෘත කර තිබෙනවා) and that the first flight has already been flown. The airport is open; the slug is wrong on tense.
The same filing credits the Associated Press in its body but lists ABC as its source at the foot. This desk could not reach either wire directly to establish which carried the original.
Not reported
The filing gives no construction cost, no runway specification, no passenger-capacity figure and no airline or route schedule beyond the inaugural Copenhagen service. It does not say how many visitors Greenland currently receives or what target the government is working to.
Single source. This is a relay of an international wire report by one verified newsroom. Figures circulating for the runway length and the aircraft type used on the first flight could not be confirmed against a verified source for Ilulissat specifically — the comparable figures this desk could verify belong to the 2024 Nuuk opening — and have therefore been left out.
