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Royal Arctic Line was formed in 1992 with the transition of Greenland's sea transport from being a traditional and conventional cargo operation to becoming a fully modernized container operation.
The operation is based on a sole and exclusive right from the Greenland Home Rule to operate regular services
- between ports in Greenland
- between Greenlandic ports, Aalborg and Reykjavík
- between Greenlandic ports and certain overseas ports via Aalborg or Reykjavík.
Until 1992 the Home Rule Government owned KNI Service (Kalaallit Niuerfiat), which operated about seven relatively small general cargo ships from Aalborg port in Denmark to a number of different ports, mainly on Greenlands west coast. The cargo consisted of goods varying from consumer products to heavy construction equipment. The conventional cargo operation resulted in an inconvenient and uneconomical transportation of Greenland's export cargo, mainly fish products. Moreover, the operation did not contribute to the development of the inter-coastal traffic.
In 1995 Royal Arctic Line operated four container vessels and two conventional cargo vessels, of which one was mainly serving the cities on Greenland's east coast and the other the northern part of Greenland's west coast. The four container vessels, with a capacity to carry the equivalent of 275 to 700 20-foot containers, provide a service between Denmark (Aalborg) and the west coast of Greenland every 10 to 11 days. The main port in Greenland is Nuuk, where basically all cargo is transhipped on board two feeder vessels (capacity: 275 to 380 20-foot container equivalent). During the ice-free season, one feeder vessel calls regularly at 5 ports north of Nuuk and the other feeder vessels calls all year round at 4 ports south of Nuuk.
In line with its sole and exclusive right, which runs until the end of 1999, Royal Arctic Line has entered into ongoing agreements with other shipping companies, and by way of these agreements Royal Arctic Line is able to offer the customers a variety of overseas destinations for their cargo.
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Public control of Royal Arctic Line is exercised through approval of the sailing schedule and tariffs by the Department of Public Works and Transportation, according to the criteria laid down in the shareholder agreement.
By moving the centre of the cargo distribution to Nuuk, Royal Arctic Line has succeeded in establishing a number of jobs in Greenland. A considerable sum of money is invested in educating the Greenlanders to become professional shipping people either on shore or at sea. During the high season in 1995 (August/ November) a total number of 570 people were employed.
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