Before today began, I debated even writing a blog. Nothing was going to happen. It simply entailed waking up, going to airport, getting on a plane, and flying back to New Jersey. In some ways, that is exactly what happened, but you have to imagine it all occurring in the least efficient way possible.
We woke up at 6 to give ourselves time to have breakfast and get ready. For whatever reason, with the “upgrade,” we were now offered breakfast. Otherwise, this would have been over $20 per person. It wouldn’t have been worth it, but it was good to at least get a bit of food. The front desk had told us to arrive two hours before our flight, and we did our best to honor that. Taxis were waiting outside at 7am, one of them for us.
When we arrived at the terminal, we noticed a rather long line of people queued up the entire length of the terminal area — many of them familiar to us from the previous day’s flight. As it would turn out, certain security officers hadn’t shown up for work as well as customs officials, so a gate was partially closed over the security checkpoint. There was no clear estimate on how long this would take, but I’ll just cut to it. It was three hours. The above photo makes it appear organized and civil, but this quickly descended into a mass of bodies strewn about on every square inch of the terminal.
It sure would have been nice to have slept for the extra few hours. Everyone looked in varying stages of decay. Keep in mind, there were a not insignificant number of people who just never went to bed last night. Eventually the workers showed up and the line reassembled to go through security. That was simple enough, but we were dumped into the Duty Free store, which served as holding tank #1. They unfortunately didn’t have much to offer as far as souvenirs, but that didn’t stop us from joining line #2 — the checkout for Duty Free.
After battling hordes of people with nowhere to go, we joined line #3 to go through passport control. This led to holding tank #2, or a vague semblance of line #4. We were caught in a no-man’s land between customs and the boarding area since boarding had not actually commenced. Everyone just ended up on top of everyone else. Nicole found a chair at the side of the room and was told she couldn’t sit there. Her body groaned as it returned to its standing position. “Have you been doing a lot of hiking?,” asked the employee? “Nope, just standing for the last four hours,” replied the quick-thinking Donadio. Boarding was as chaotic and slow as the rest of the process, and we boarded our plane just before noon, departing more than three hours behind schedule. We had been at the airport for over five hours — a longer amount of time spent there than our adventures yesterday evening, and comparable to how much time we spent in our own hotel room. This therefore makes it our (and numerous others) top attraction in Greenland.
What did we all learn from this? Greenland and United Airlines are way out of their comfort zone with this flight. Despite building an all-new terminal and extending a runway, Nuuk seems to have no clue how to manage an airport that has international flights. United, for its part, appears to be hoping that enough influencers have done the flight to earn a bit of “coolness” and make their brand look hip and edgy. But at what cost? Today did not seem to be a one-off. There have been numerous other delays on this end over the past weeks as well as a diversion and a cancelation. For a route that isn’t making any money, this seems to be a lot of trouble to go through. In the end, most people aren’t even ending their day in Newark because New Jersey is scary. Knowing that, how many missed connections and customer service fiascos will United have to deal with from just this flight alone?
So consider this like a mini reflection because it was the ultimate mini trip — the most ridiculous international voyage I may have ever done. The concept of doing an “easy” flight to Greenland is cool. Its execution, however is problematic. Some of the paying passengers were overheard talking about hikes or fishing trips, boat excursions etc. You can spend a few days in Greenland and find things to do, but with no roads connecting Nuuk to other towns or villages, it is still quite limiting. The things on offer — puffin tours, whale-watching, or fishing trips can all be done somewhere else on earth. You see, the reason so many people are just doing it as an absurdly short overnight is because it’s either that or you spend four days waiting for the next flight which is kind of a lot. I had a lot of time to listen in on other people’s conversations whilst in line #1, and it seems that the primary reason for people going to Greenland is because it’s simply unique to go at all.
It seems exotic. It’s the giant white island you fly over when going between North America and Europe and wonder how anyone could live there. Having spent just a few hours there and struggled to find food, shops, or an efficiently operating airport, it’s even more perplexing how anyone does it (lots and lots of alcohol apparently). Would I advise others to visit? Probably not. Do I regret going? No. Do I think Trump’s claim on Greenland is a good one? Obviously not. The majority of Greenland’s residents may want a formal separation from Denmark, but that doesn’t mean they just want to be taken over by someone else — much less some ill-informed autocrat who must think Greenland would make a good place for a golf course. Now that I think about it, maybe all this airport chaos is a way for Greenlanders to get back at Americans for sending JD Vance their way.
Do we count Greenland as a separate country in our overall country count? It is, as many others in line #1 were discussing, a bit complicated. Greenland is autonomous. They have their own parliament and government yet they have Danish passports. Their olympians would compete for Denmark and their currency is Danish kroners. They do, however, have their own national football team that recently bid to join the North American conference (CONCACAF). Google AI says Greenland is not a country and is a territory of Denmark. Google AI also told me that recycling the starchy boiled pasta water would help me make a better Cacio e Pepe dish, and it most certainly did not! Therefore it cancels out. Greenland counts as a country and that’s that.
One could go on a proper vacation there I suppose, but it would incur a rather large amount of debt for the bragging rights to simply say, “I’ve been to Greenland.” “How was that?,” people will ask. For those who paid for their flights, they will feel the need to justify the expense and they will say it was magical. “The puffins were wonderfully plump!,” they might say. “I shot 8 reindeer and then rode a polar bear to the airport because there weren’t any taxis!,” you might hear from another. They know full well that most sane people won’t fly to Greenland to verify for themselves if any of this is true. But for the average of 40+ freeloading standby travelers on any given United flight to/from Greenland, I suspect the response will differ. We all did this because it was there — an offbeat place for offbeat people. And for this triad of travelers, we somehow survived the absurdity of this adventure and came out the other side to tell people, “Wait, what? What time is it? Who am I? Was this all a dream?” Come find us again next time when we take United’s flight from San Francisco to the Aleutians.
passports & pepto bismol 