Air Greenland has signed a lease agreement with Carlyle Aviation to acquire a single Airbus A320neo aircraft with the new narrowbody jet scheduled to join the carrier’s 2027 summer schedule.
It is understood that Air Greenland’s CEO, Jacob Nitter Sørensen, signed the six-year lease agreement, with the option to extend, on February 14, 2025.
The aircraft will be delivered in December 2026 and will then be adapted to Greenlandic conditions, a spokesperson for Air Greenland said.
The new arrival is set to coincide with the major expansion of North Greenland’s Ilulissat Airport (JAV) which is expected to open in late 2026 with a 2,200 metre runway.
“The delivery time for new Airbus aircraft is currently 6-7 years, so we have chosen to lease the aircraft to be ready when the new international airport in Ilulissat opens and to gain financial flexibility as the route is still new,” said Sørensen.
The A320neo will operate on a new route from Ilulissat to Copenhagen in Denmark and complements the airline’s A330neo which already flies between Nuuk Airport (NUK) and the Danish capital.
“We have high hopes for the new route to Ilulissat and see the lease agreement as a catalyst for exciting opportunities on our route network. Not least, we will be able to adjust capacity between the larger A330neo aircraft and the smaller A320neo,” Sørensen added.
SAS already maintains Air Greenland’s A330-800 and will now additionally service the A320neo once it begins operations.
Flight and cabin crews will operate on both the A330neo and A320neo and a number of Air Greenland’s Dash-8 pilots will be retrained to fly the new arrival.
