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Flightseeing

Experiencing Greenland from the air provides a new perspective of the enormous size of the country, and the conditions for life in the Arctic.

Flight seeing, or adventure tours by air, is aviations response to kayaking. In a country where all the roads are pretty much confined within city limits, and where transportation through the wilderness is based on shipping or aviation, the large panorama windows of a helicopter or a small fixed wing aircraft, provide the viewer with sights of Greenland that few people get to experience.

As a rule, it will take you about a week on foot to cover the distance you can traverse by air in an hour, and we recommend you experience the landscape in both ways. But if your aim is to have an overview and see how the country changes patterns from oceans to fiords to mountains to the inland area and the ice, then a flight seeing adventure is your obvious choice.

“My favorite was the flight to get the scale of the Ilulissat Ice Fjord, which is stupendous! I am still trying to get my head around the scale! I would not have missed this for the world. It is truly an opportunity of a lifetime!”

Package Tours

Blue Ice Explorer: Plan your own holiday in Greenland

Blue Ice Explorer

Plan your own holiday in South Greenland

Are you dreaming and going to South Greenland and would you prefer to plan your own trip?

FROM €55
Greenland Tours – Frozen West

Greenland Tours

Frozen West

5 days exploring Disko Bay in winter incl. visit to the Greenland Ice Cap

FROM €1,335
North Safari Travel: Winter safari in march/april

North Safari Travel

Winter safari in March/April

North Safari Travel offers a 4-day safari expedition in the unspoiled Arctic wilderness near the ice cap in West Greenland. It's a real wilderness adventure in the world's' Last Frontier.

FROM €1,900
Greenland Travel: Summer impressions in Greenland

Greenland Travel

Summer impressions in Greenland

Greenland’s most popular sites: the Greenland Ice Sheet at Kangerlussuaq, the capital of Nuuk and, the world-famous Ilulissat Ice Fjord.

From €3,625
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MUSK OXEN AND THE ICE CAP IN KANGERLUSSUAQ

The edge of the Ice Cap is a chaotic ice landscape with strange twisted, wavy formations and bends, and in Kangerlussuaq, the Ice Cap is just minutes from the international airport,by air, of course.

The ride in the in small, nimble five passenger air craft passes over a landscape marked by the moving ice and its gradual withdrawal. From the sandy bottom of the fiord – deposits come from under the ice and are carried there by melting glacial rivers during summer – over gentle hills and rounded mountains to clearly visible moraines – marking the beginning of the inland ice, and the landscape steadily rising towards the Ice Cap.

Be sure to look carefully at the landscape on the way towards the Ice Cap. Because in 1964 biologists moved 27 musk oxen to the mountains around Kangerlussuaq and that tiny band of animals has today grown to a population of more than 10.000 musk oxen.

It should be easy to spot animals in such large numbers, but the herds are always on the move and therefore easier to watch from the air. The pilots from Air Zafari know the terrain so well that they guarantee everyone will see the musk oxen on all their flights in the Kangerlussuaq area. If they can’t locate any animals in the first valley they will just continue on to the next one.

  • The operator of air tours, Air Zafari offers tourist flights in Ilulissat, Kangerlussuaq and Kulusuk.

  • Air Greenland offers helicopter flights in Ilulissat.

  • Each tour usually lasts from about 25 minutes to 1½ hours.

  • Air Zafari uses special aircraft for flight seeing tours which provide excellent opportunities for great photo shoots from every window on the aircraft.

THE ICE FIORD AND ILULISSAT

The ice fiord, Kangia in Ilulissat, is the ultimate destination for many travellers to Greenland, and combined with boat tours among the icebergs and hiking trips along the edge of the fiord, flightseeing tours really prove their worth.

Ilulissat offers helicopter tours to the Ice fiord as well as large-scale adventures in fixed wing aircraft with extended range, providing an opportunity to see the world in even greater perspective when flying over the glacier at Eqi, and on out over the Disko Bay.

In Ilulissat there are very good opportunities to see whales from above, when they come up for air, breaking the water surface between the icebergs.

Although the following may sound like a weird nature experience, the presence of cruise ships will show the viewer in a very obvious way that even these massive floating hotels pale in comparison to the gigantic icebergs.

The world seems deceptively simple when viewed from above. The gigantic icebergs in the water look like ice cubes in a bath tub, the city like colorful Lego bricks and the mountains on the volcanic island of Qeqertarsuaq shrink in size resembling easy hills to run up on. Flying is not a bad idea at all.

RAW MOUNTAINS, ICE, AND SMALL COMMUNITIES IN EAST GREENLAND

In Eastern Greenland everything always seems a little bigger, wilder and more desolate than in Western Greenland. Especially if one chooses to believe the local population. Maybe there is something to it, because surrounding the airport at Kulusuk and the main town of Tasiilaq a raw world emerges with razor sharp peaks on the mountain ridges which stretch towards the north and the south, as far as the eye can see.

Going for a ride with Air Zafari in East Greenland, you will quickly get an appreciation of the logistical challenges that we live with, in our daily lives. The Ice Cap towards the west flanks the tiny belt of mountains and fiords, and from the around the middle of July, in the Denmark Strait towards the east, the pack ice descends straight down from the Arctic Ocean and mixes with the many icebergs from the Sermilik glacier in a tight belt around Tasiilaq.

The flow of broken pack ice, which the ocean currents push towards the south, affects life in East Greenland, and sometimes the heavy traffic of small boats with local people going to and from the small scattered communities, often have to slow down considerably while the passengers onboard assist in navigation, pushing the ice floes aside and looking for clear water between the icebergs.

Local providers

An Air Greenland Dash-8 taking off from Kulusuk in East Greenland. Photo by Mads Pihl

Air Greenland

Nuuk, Nuuk Airport
3900,
Phone: +299 34 34 34 / +299 34 85 85More information
Dogs on a dog sledding trip near Ilulissat in Greenland fanning out in typical west Greenlandic fashion. Photo by Mads Pihl - Visit Greenland

Albatros Arctic Circle

Kangerlussuaq, Mittarfiit Aqq.
3910,
Phone: +299 84 16 48More information
Tasermiut 3

Tasermiut South Greenland Expeditions

Qassiarsuk, B-873 Qassiarsuk
3923,
Phone: (+299) 522 822More information
Handmade figure. Visit Greenland

Tupilak Travel

Nuuk, Imaneq 18,
3900,
Phone: (+299) 313 218More information
Hotel Hvide Falk 03

Hotel Hvide Falk

Ilulissat, Postboks 20,
3952,
Phone: (+299) 943 343More information
Aerial view of the hotel with sunrise in background in Winter. Photo by Hotel Angmagssalik

Hotel Angmagssalik

Tasiilaq, Suulup Aqqutaa B 725,
3913,
Phone: +299 98 12 93More information
Blue Iceberg. Photo by Blue Ice Explorer

Blue Ice Explorer

Narsarsuaq, Box 58
3923,
Phone: +299 66 54 99 / +299 49 73 71More information
Boat tour into the Pack-ice near Angmagssalik. Photo by Arctic Wonderland Tours, Visit Greenland

Arctic Wonderland Tours

Tasiilaq, Suulup Aqqutaa B-725,
3913,
Phone: +299 98 12 93More information

World of Greenland

Ilulissat, Kussangajaannguaq 7,
3952,
Phone: (+299) 944 300More information
A view of two Air Zafari flightseeing planes over the Greenland Ice Sheet near Kangerlussuaq Airport

Air Zafari

Nuuk, Box 568
3900,
Phone: +299 58 40 68 / +299 24 85 54More information

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