Nuuk, Greenland (GOH), has been getting fairly a little bit of consideration in current occasions, particularly with the airport having not too long ago expanded. This enables for extra worldwide flights, together with United’s seasonal flight from Newark (EWR).
Nevertheless, one thing unusual is happening, as flagged by JonNYC — efficient tomorrow, the airport can’t accommodate departing worldwide flights, and it’s anybody’s guess when these flights will be capable of resume.
Worldwide flights paused at Nuuk Airport
The Danish Civil Aviation and Railway Authority has introduced that as of Wednesday, August 27, 2025, Nuuk Airport can now not accommodate worldwide departures, till additional discover. Consequently, it’s presently solely attainable to fly from this airport to different locations in Greenland.
As you’d count on, that is having speedy impacts on airways. United’s flight from Newark to Nuuk at present ended up returning to Newark after takeoff.
You need to give United credit score for its transparency in sharing the explanations for operational points. As United explains it, it is because “Nuuk Airport has briefly suspended all worldwide flights, affecting all airways.”
It seems like this flight might’ve nonetheless landed in Nuuk at present, however with the return flight scheduled for tomorrow, United understandably didn’t wish to probably strand a crew and passengers there.
What’s inflicting these points? In line with Greenland Airports, the suspension is as a result of Danish authorities have determined that the coaching of workers for screening worldwide vacationers doesn’t meet normal necessities. So the airport nonetheless has its home security certification, however worldwide flights require completely different requirements.
The airport authority is now working with regulators to deal with the particular considerations which have been recognized, and the purpose is to renew regular operations as quickly as attainable. Nevertheless, it’s anybody’s guess how huge of a venture this shall be… are we speaking hours, days, weeks, or…?
The expectation is that Air Greenland’s worldwide flights will route through Kangerlussuaq (SFJ) or Narsarsuaq (UAK), as the dearth of certification is particular to this airport. One definitely wonders what precisely went unsuitable. Was there an audit that was failed, or is there extra to this?
A number of weeks in the past, the airport made headlines as a result of flights had been delayed attributable to safety workers going deer searching relatively than displaying up for work. It’s not clear if that’s one of many components that triggered this problem. Whereas that makes an awesome story, you wouldn’t suppose that makes the airport unsafe, since folks simply couldn’t enter the safe space of the terminal when there weren’t sufficient workers.
This isn’t the primary time one thing like this has occurred
Right here’s what I discover fascinating. Virtually a 12 months in the past to the date, Nuuk Airport additionally wasn’t in a position to display outbound worldwide passengers. This was seemingly for a similar basic cause — worldwide flight authorization was yanked from the airport.
The reason was that the airport didn’t meet “the mandatory excessive stage of safety within the safety space,” and “as airport safety entails a excessive stage of confidentiality, we can not go into element about which safety measures are presently missing.”
On the time, it appeared like that had extra to do with some kind of a technicality, provided that the airport was solely newly accepting worldwide flights. For instance, a traveler who arrived on a world constitution flight on the airport shortly earlier than that final suspension wrote the next in regards to the arrival expertise:
“I didn’t present my passport to anybody. We went from the airplane to the taxi. Nobody pointed us the place to go and the hallway and doorways appeared open. Perhaps they forgot to direct us. I’ll fortunately get my passport stamped!”
So it’s anybody’s guess if the difficulty this 12 months is similar as the difficulty final 12 months, or what…
Backside line
Nuuk Airport has briefly had its worldwide flight authorization revoked, attributable to some kind of a priority with safety screening. The Danish Civil Aviation and Railway Authority is reportedly behind this resolution, and this got here so immediately that United’s Nuuk-bound flight even returned to Newark.
It’s not usually you see one thing like this occur, so I’m curious for a way lengthy this persists. It looks as if some flights could begin routing by way of Kangerlussuaq in order that passengers may be screened, however who is aware of…
What do you make of this case at Nuuk Airport?
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