V H
Google
Oh my! We were excited to be flying out of Nuuk’s new ‘international’ airport after an expedition cruise. Just because they were shut one day because of the security staff going reindeer hunting, just because they were actually closed to international flights because they weren’t up to snuff (just a few days before we were due to fly out) - I was still willing to give them a chance. How bad could they be? Pretty bad as it turns out. We arrived in the last tranche of passengers to leave our ship (so maybe 250 odd?) - can only say thank heavens there weren’t two ships disgorging passengers that day. This is a small airport. In less than a year, it’s been outgrown. We walked into the terminal and it was packed. Out of all the people who got there before us, it didn’t look like many had been processed. The queues to check in were snaking back and forward onto themselves, We put up with this in the final queue that was closest to the entry door for about 5 minutes. Then I saw a local use one of the 4 (or 5) - really - not enough - self-service machines. I usually avoid these things, and didn’t know my PNR/Booking reference - but left hubby in the queue and took 2 steps to the nearest machine - WOO HOO! We knew we were flying Air Greenland and that was all we needed - scanned the passports, the machine found our booking, selected sets and printed bag tags - that was us, walked to the chaotic bag drop area where the handling staff were incredibly overwhelmed, almost got into a fisticuffs with some fool who thought we were pushing into the check-in queue - so had to wave our boarding passes and then just pushed the bags into the general area that was getting loaded onto trolleys. Cue the next circle of hell. There are three automated gates where you scan your boarding pass to get to actual Security. (only 3!) Which would have probably worked ok. One was functioning. The second was blocked with a family of 4 who were struggling and the 3rd was blocked by the posterior of the staff member helping the family. So 1 of 3 ‘working’. But there was no rush as there are two massive security screening belts and machines… but only enough staff to make one work. These are the ‘new’ machines where you don’t have to take much out of your bags - BUT - only 1 in say 8 bags made it through - which meant the other 7 bags had to be scanned/inspected/swabbed by another 2 staff. Eventually airside. Already busy, was packed to the rafters by the time we were called. Air Greenland sells a premium product but you wouldn’t know it in the airport - no lounge, no priority boarding, just sit close to your gate then wait for chaos to board. And it’s the only Duty Free in the world that doesn’t have actual perfume testers. Fail. Fail. Fail. They built this place for the capacity they used to need - it is outgrown and dated less than 1 year old.
