The unique 8-hour flight from Greenland on a turboprop airplane
The coronavirus pandemic is having a huge impact in airlines, forcing them to be “creative”, presenting flights and routes that we would never see. Air Greenland’s 8-hour flight between Nuuk and Copenhagen using a Dash 8 turboprop is amongst the most unique of the bunch.
While the commercial operation between Kangerlussuaq and Copenhagen using an Airbus A330-200 was suspended on March 20, the airline is keeping a lifeline operation between the autonomous Danish Territory capital, Nuuk and Copenhagen. Nothing very surprising here considering how isolated Greenland would be without any connection to the exterior.
However, due to the very likely low-demand of passengers needing repatriation, the airline decided to using a most cost-effective aircraft in this mostly-cargo operation – the small De Havilland Canada Dash 8-200 turboprop.
Due to the much shorter range of the Dash-8 compared with the A330-200, Air Greenland is currently making a short stop in Reykjavik. According with Simple Flying it’s not clear if they pick up and drop-off passengers in Iceland or if its just for refuelling purposes.
Dash-8, under flight number GL6780 departed from Nuuk on March 22 at 6:56 (ETD was 7:00) landing in Reykjavik (KEF) at 13:04, with a flight time of 3 hours and 8 minutes. After around one in KEF, it departed at 14:18, Iceland Time.
After 4 hours and 11 minutes, Air Greenland’s OY-GRO, landed in Copenhagen, with a total flight time of seven hours and 19 minutes with passengers and crew being on the plane for a bit more than eight hours.
On the next day, the return flight GL779, returned from Copenhagen using the same route. CPH-KEF was completed in a bit short of 5 hours.
The second leg between KEF and GOH was completed in 3 hours and 2 minutes resulting in a total flight time of exactly eight hours. Adding the 34 minutes that the airplane was in the ground Reykjavik, the total time that passengers and crew spent on the aircraft was, in total, 8 hours and 34 minutes.
Would you fly this route if it was commercially available?
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