World’s biggest island to build three brand new airports – with one opening as soon as this year
THE world’s biggest island is planning to open three brand new airports with the first one coming this year.
The ambitious plan will see the frozen tundra of Greenland welcome more passengers in a bid to boost tourism.
The Denmark-controlled island is home to over 56,000 people scarcely scattered across its coastal towns.
With freezing temperatures of -25C and only a handful of small airports, Greenland isn’t the most popular or easy destination to travel to.
Currently, visitors can fly to only two airports on the island that can handle jets before transferring to a domestic flight.
Holidaymakers are forced to board on a tiny propeller plane if they want to get to the capital Nuuk.
To save travellers the hassle, the authorities have decided to build three more airports which will be equipped for international flights.
Jens Lauridsen, CEO of Greenland Airports, told theB1M: “The Greenlandic economy is very dependent on fish, and this means that it has a certain kind of vulnerability to it.
“There is a want to strengthen the economy by building new pillars — one of the pillars being tourism.
“Around 60 to 65% of everybody going to Greenland actually goes to Nuuk.
“And today you will have to fly to another airport, and then you will have to do a domestic flight to get to Nuuk.”
The capital’s current airport is set to be revamped by November 28, 2024 with plans to double its runway to 2.2km.
Nuuk’s airport will be fitted with a new terminal with apron, two taxiways, a new control tower and service buildings.
The airport in Illulissat, Greenland’s third largest city, will boast identical transformations and the same length runway.
The longer tarmacs will allow both airports accommodate large aircraft which will open up doors for international travel.
In order to facilitate landings in low visibility, they are also being fitted with instrument landing systems.
Pilots often struggle with low-level fog in the area when trying to land a plane on the icy island.
Greenland’s runways are also frequently covered in snow or completely frozen and some airports are surrounded by enormous fjords that can produce erratic wind gusts.
The third airport will be smaller than the other two and will open in the southern part of the island, in Qaqortoq.
It will be the town’s first airport and mostly used for domestic flights, with 1,500-meter runway and a maximum capacity of 200 passengers at a time.
Illulisat and Qaqortoq are now both scheduled for completion in 2026.
But building in an Arctic tundra has been complicated by sub-zero temperatures and barren ground with a layer of permafrost beneath.
The construction can only take place during summer months and has to be halted completely between December and April.
In order to begin building on the two larger airports, about six million cubic meters of rock – double the Great Pyramid’s volume – had to be blasted away.
Lauridsen said: “The majority of the time that we have spent on construction so far has actually been the drilling, blasting and moving of rock.
“We have literally blown a mountain away in order to make enough space to get a 2.2km runway.”
The grandiose project is estimated to cost the Danish and Greenland’s government a whopping £563million.
But with tourism bringing around £225million to the island’s economy a year, the airports should pay off quickly.
It comes as Greece is set to build a huge new £422million airport to handle the growing number of tourists who are flocking to the island.
When it opens in 2027, Kastelli International Airport will replace the existing Nikos Kazantzakis International Airport in Heraklion.
Meanwhile, the UAE has plans to open the largest airport in the world – although passenger flights could be a long way off.
Al Maktoum International Airport, also known as Dubai World Central, first started welcoming passenger flights in 2013.
The airport, which is located 20 miles southwest of Dubai, had ambitious plans to become the largest and busiest airport in the world.
Currently, the title of the biggest airport in the world is held by King Fahd International Airport – with the entire area being eight times bigger than Paris.
The airport near Dammam was built in 1999, and named after King of Saudi Arabia Fahd ibn Abdulaziz who reigned for 23 years before his death in 2005.
Operating at the airport are 37 airlines serving 43 destinations.