på dansk
Facts about Kangerlussuaq.
The airport is situated at the bottom of Søndre Strømfjord,
from which it takes its Danish name.
In Greenlandic, the name of the airport is Kangerlussuaq which means
the great fiord (Kangerdluk means fiord, the suffix suaq denoting great).
The American Air Force named the place Bluie West 8 (BW-8), Narsarssuaq
in southern Greenland being Bluie West 1.
Bluie West 8 was established by the US Army Air Force in 1941. The
Norwegian Bernt Balchen was given the assignment to build the airport.
He arrived by ship at the bottom of Søndre Strømfjord on
9 October 1941 where he started immediately to build a runway. On December
7 1941, the first plane landed on Bluie West 8.
At the end of the 1950s, the runway was expanded to handle large jet
planes.
In 1954, the Scandinavian Airlines System opened the Polar Route from
Copenhagen via Søndre Strømfjord and Winnipeg to Los Angeles,
establishing a regular flight connection between Denmark and Greenland.
A couple of years ago, the American Air Force left, and the airport
is now a purely civilian airport serving Greenland.