Seaplane era

In the early 1960s, after the establishment of Air Greenland on 7 November 1960 as Grønlandsfly, Nuuk was served exclusively by the PBY Catalina flying boat, with the aircraft using the waterways of the Nuuk Port as a landing site. In 1962 a Catalina crashed near the port, killing 15 people on board.

Helicopter era

On 31 May 1965, a heliport was opened in Nuuk, located close to where the Inussivik sports centre is today (at 64.180275°N 51.730082°W / 64.180275; -51.730082). The heliport had hangar and maintenance facilities for the helicopters.

The 1962 tragedy was one of the factors leading to the decision to invest in a helicopter fleet. The Sikorsky S-61N machines proved to be a more reliable mode of transport for the city, providing exclusive service for the Nuuk city for more than a decade—from the purchase date in 1965 until the late 1970s.

Even in the later era of the fixed-wing, turboprop plane domination, the S-61N helicopters continued to link Nuuk with the smaller town of Paamiut, until the airport was built there in 2007.

Regional airport network

Nuuk Airport was opened on 1 October 1979, when the then newly formed home rule government decided to create a network of the STOL-capable domestic airports.

Nuuk airport was originally constructed with one asphalt runway (05/23) 950 m × 30 m (3,117 ft × 98 ft), located 283 ft (86 m) above sea level. The airport terminal and apron were built on a levelled platform on an undulating slope under the Quassussuaq mountain, with the runway platform artificially elevated to compensate for the scarp immediately to the west. The runway platform bed was composed of broken rock and rubble, topped with gravel, and was protected by a low, wooden fence.

The airport in Nuuk, the largest city in Greenland, was a priority for the government. A STOLport was subsequently constructed in Ilulissat, the largest town in the Disko Bay region of western Greenland. Kulusuk Airport was also repurposed from its prior military use. This constituted the first such wave of network expansion.

Network expansion

The first international flights from Nuuk Airport were to Iqaluit in Nunavut, Canada, operated from 1981 until it was discontinued due to commercial unviability in 1994. Flights to Reykjavik, Iceland via Kulusuk also began in 1981.

It was not until the late 1990s to early 2000s that the network experienced another spurt of large-scale growth, when the airports in the remaining larger towns were built: Sisimiut Airport in Sisimiut and Maniitsoq Airport in Maniitsoq in central-western Greenland, Aasiaat Airport in the Disko Bay region, Upernavik Airport in Upernavik in northwestern Greenland, and Qaarsut Airport, an airport in Qaarsut, a settlement in the Uummannaq Fjord region; the airport serving both the village and the larger town of Uummannaq, located on the rocky Uummannaq Island.

2000 onwards

Due to the commercial inviability of international flights to Canada and Iceland using smaller STOL aircraft, for years afterwards international flights to Greenland were limited to Kangerlussuaq Airport in central western Greenland, 319 km (198 mi) to the north of Nuuk, an airport inherited from the U.S. Air Force when the former Sondrestrom Air Base was handed over to the then home rule government on 30 September 1992.

With the airport being limited to serving small planes, the possibilities for international connections remained limited. Icelandair opened a direct route from Reykjavik to Nuuk in 2007. In order to compete with Icelandair, which operates services to Nuuk, Narsarsuaq, Ilulissat, and all airports on the eastern coast, Air Greenland announced opening of new connections with Iceland, linking Nuuk and Narsarsuaq with Keflavík International Airport, later restricting it to Nuuk.

Air Greenland's seasonal flights to Iqaluit in Canada resumed in summer 2012, but ended before summer 2015. Air Greenland relaunched its summer seasonal route between Nuuk and Iqaluit with a once-weekly frequency for the 2024 season using its Dash 8.

The airport is also used for various charter flights, such as airlifts to the summit of the 1,210 m (3,970 ft) Sermitsiaq Mountain, a landmark of Nuuk, located on Sermitsiaq Island north of the airport.

The airport is also used for shuttle flights for events like the 2010 Inuit Circumpolar Council general assembly in Nuuk. and for the 2016 Arctic Winter Games. In general the short runway was a problem for large events in Nuuk. Most, charter, VIP and extra flights from outside Greenland could not land in Nuuk (or any other city of Greenland), so Air Greenland needed to shuttle passengers between Kangerlussuaq and Nuuk, using planes much smaller than the charter planes, often requiring a hotel night in Kangerlussuaq.

Proposals for expansion

Considering the growth of Nuuk as a commercial and administrative centre in Greenland as well as increasing tourism, there was a need to improve flight connections to the country's capital. More than a third of Greenland's populace resides in Nuuk and the majority of the country's significant institutions are situated in the city.