Greenland just got a lot closer. The town at the center of it is the one I would put at the top of the list. On October 29, Ilulissat International Airport opened on Greenland’s west coast. The first flight in was a nonstop from Copenhagen aboard Air Greenland’s Airbus A330neo. I have not been to Ilulissat yet, so this is not a trip report. It is the news that makes the trip possible. Until last week, reaching the town they call the City of Icebergs meant connecting through Nuuk or Kangerlussuaq and finishing on a small plane. Now you can fly straight in from Denmark. From next summer, you can fly straight in from Iceland too.
The Airport and the Flights
The airport itself is the story. At just 845 meters, the old runway was too short for jets. The new one stretches 2,200 meters, alongside a 5,000-square-meter terminal built to face Disko Bay. Airport manager Ole Damgaard put it well: arriving passengers see the ice before they see anything else. The inaugural flight, GL707, carried 169 passengers from Copenhagen. Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, was on board for the four-and-a-half-hour hop.
For the winter, Danish carrier Jettime flies the route with a Boeing 737-800. It runs once a week on Wednesdays, with extra Monday departures around Christmas and New Year and in March. Flight GL707 leaves Copenhagen at 9:45 in the morning and lands in Ilulissat at 11:45. The return, GL708, leaves at 1:15 in the afternoon and reaches Copenhagen at 9 in the evening.
From April 2027, Air Greenland‘s new Airbus A320neo, Unaaq, takes over the route. Service builds to as many as six flights a week from mid-June through early September. Icelandair adds a second gateway next summer. It will fly three nonstops a week between Keflavik and Ilulissat from June 3 through October 16, 2027. For American travelers, that still means a connection in Europe. It cuts out the extra flight inside Greenland. One practical note: there are no public buses to or from the airport, so arrange a hotel shuttle or a taxi before you land. The airport is still ramping up, with full operations targeted for summer 2027.
Why Ilulissat Is Worth the Trip
The reason to go is the ice. Ilulissat sits on Disko Bay, where enormous icebergs drift past the town’s colorful waterfront. They break away from Sermeq Kujalleq, one of the most active glaciers in the world. The glacier feeds the 37-mile Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004. The scale of it is hard to picture until you are standing on the shore looking at ice taller than buildings.
Make the Ilulissat Icefjord Centre your first stop. It is a wood-and-glass building by Danish architect Dorte Mandrup. It explains the science of glaciers and the thousands of years of human history along the fjord. From there, a flat 0.8-mile boardwalk passes Sermermiut, the site of ancient Inuit settlements. It leads to a viewpoint over the ice-choked fjord. The 4.3-mile Blue Trail follows the rocky coastline for a longer walk. It is worth seeing the icebergs from the water too. Wonderful Ilulissat runs two-hour sightseeing cruises. Albatros Arctic Circle runs evening excursions in summer, when the midnight sun turns the ice gold late at night. Humpback whales spend the warmer months feeding in Disko Bay, and both companies run whale-watching trips.
Planning a Trip
Summer is the most popular time to go. With the new flight schedule, it is also the easiest. But winter and spring have their own case. Between roughly February and April, when conditions allow, you can explore the snow-covered backcountry by dogsled. From autumn through spring, the northern lights can appear above the Icefjord.
For a base, Afar‘s two picks are Hotel Arctic and Hotel Icefiord. Hotel Arctic sits on a rocky hillside above Disko Bay. Its freestanding Aurora Cabins let you watch the lights or the midnight sun. At Hotel Icefiord, all 36 rooms have water views. The Deluxe Explorer rooms add private balconies and skylights for watching the aurora from bed. Ilulissat also works as a base for going farther. The fishing settlement of Oqaatsut is about 13 miles north. World of Greenland’s Glacier Lodge Eqi is roughly three and a half hours away by boat. It puts you in cabins and glamping tents facing Eqip Sermia, an actively calving glacier. Greenland drew an estimated 179,873 tourists in 2025, up about 8 percent on the year before. The new airport can handle more.
The Verdict
So who is this for? It is for the traveler who wants the Arctic without the expedition cruise price tag or the multi-hop flight plan. Photographers and hikers will love it too. So will anyone who has ever wanted to watch a glacier calve from a boat. It is not a resort trip, and it is not a warm one. But the hardest part of reaching Ilulissat used to be getting there. As of October 29, that part just got a lot easier. Summer 2027 is the moment to aim for, when the flights are frequent and the midnight sun is up.
