I started a new thread for information concerning changes in frequencies. They happen all the time and maybe it is not a good idea to start a new thread every time. I guess Flyertalk is basically a frequent flyer programme site and these news are not the core issues.

WARSAW
Starting next January Warsaw will get a new midday frequency allowing very good connection to the 1700 wawe of Asian flights. The morning flight will leave one hour earlier and the new noon flights from HEL to WAW will serve connectin passengers from New York (slower than before but moire reliable). Poland is going to apply the Schengen rules so the the previous connection time of 35 minutes would have become too tight (my own speculation)

on the other hand

GDANSK
has been cancelled for the winter period. So just Lisbon, Ljubljana and Bucharest have survived as the new European year-around destinations. Aviation to Poland is flourishing. From Finland it seems there is only demand for Warsaw. In the summer time also to Gdansk and Krakow. I wonder if there will ever be flights (AY or low-cost) to Pozen, Wroclaw, Lodz as to many, many other European airports.

AY seems to have tapped flourishing markets in Romania and Slovenia. Other choices to Asia from Ljublana and Bucharest probably take more hub time so HEL is competetive.

On the other hand, Gdansk is very much a biz destination despite the Sopot beaches so something is not going right there. Is it again poor scheduling like at NUE? I doubt further destinations in Poland are viable just yet. Gdansk and Warsaw cover the biz pax and Cracow tourism quite well.

On the other hand, AY does not have the German market covered as it could be. Nuernberg and Hannover have a broad company base and Dresden and Leipzig growing tourism. Hope to see further destinations added there.

The late expansion of HEL might also force AY to delay opening new routes until the 2009 completion. A pretty straightforward article in the Finnair Plius newsletter gave the image baggage handling is running at full capacity with severe space problems already.

Manchester

Starting the 28th of April, 2008 there will be a third daily flight (D ex 7).

Helsinki-Manchester 19:30-20:25
Manchester-Helsinki 07:30-12:15

offering good connections to Delhi and from the Asia evening arrival wave and offering a chance to get home even if an earlier flight from Asia would be delayed. Enables also one day visite to Helsinki.

Update on Warsaw

There will be a fourth daily flight from the beginning of May.
This time the flight will overnight in WAW.

A fourth daily flight to Düsseldorf
A new afternoon flight from the beginning of May 2008:
HEL-DUS 13.35-14.55
DUS-HEL 15.35-18.50

The new return flight offers good connections to the important Osaka route. As far as I know, there are many Japanese firms based in the Düsseldorf area. Of course othe Asian connections are also important for AY.

A fourth daily flight to Düsseldorf
A new afternoon flight from the beginning of May 2008:
HEL-DUS 13.35-15.55
DUS-HEL 15.35-18.50

The new return flight offers good connections to the important Osaka route. As far as I know, there are many Japanese firms based in the Düsseldorf area. Of course othe Asian connections are also important for AY.

Thanks, this is a regular route for me and the DUS-HEL time looks very nice allowing for lunch meetings in Dusseldorf. At the moment there are 10.000 Japanese inhabitants in the Dusseldorf area.

Air Berlin/LTU has announced DUS - PEK/PVG flights 5xweek from May 2008 for launch fares of less than 300 euros including connecting flights from all major German cities.

As the "revised" Finnair economy class seat comfort and service do honestly not differ much from "upscale" LCCs like Air Berlin and Germanwings I'd expect many cost conscious pax choosing this option instead on the China routes.

Another reason for AY to add a Premium Economy/WTP style product to their range and try to move up into the BA/CX/JL sphere of OW for good.

Air Berlin/LTU has announced DUS - PEK/PVG flights 5xweek from May 2008 for launch fares of less than 300 euros including connecting flights from all major German cities.

Another reason for AY to add a Premium Economy/WTP style product to their range and try to move up into the BA/CX/JL sphere of OW for good.

Interesting offer. Tackling just one far east destination will not probably introduce much competition for AY, but I read that they have 25 Dreamliners ordered and may (oops, using these, not so) soon be tackling many other destinations. Much can obviously be done with their 12 A330s... Düsseldorf as a hub is also interesting with dozens of more destinations in/onwards than Helsinki.

The major advantages of AY would be belonging to the OW and seamless integration with its network. AB connections may not be as easy, even though it guarantees the connections unlike the LCC PP-carriers (I would not touch with a rod...). Also the OW-perks offered to status-flyers may attract and keep customers. But definitely, something should be done to their current seating policies!

Interesting offer. Tackling just one far east destination will not probably introduce much competition for AY, but I read that they have 25 Dreamliners ordered and may (oops, using these, not so) soon be tackling many other destinations. Much can obviously be done with their 12 A330s... Düsseldorf as a hub is also interesting with dozens of more destinations in/onwards than Helsinki.


Anyway, I checked price examples for DUS-PVG-DUS 10th to 24th of June 2008. Air Berlin/LTU are offering discounted biz for 2400 euros while Finnair C prices start at 3500 euros (possibly including Embraer flights DUS-HEL-DUS and bus transfer both at DUS and HEL)

Even if the Air Berlin offering could only be compared to Premium Eco on other carriers (and as they offer flat beds I'm not even sure about that) this is exactly the growing middle market that AY will be missing if they don't roll out something similar. With prices around 2000 -2500 euros and service (plus mileage premium) to match AY could surely sell full prem eco cabins to ICN, PEK, PVG, NRT and NGO at least.

St Petersburg codeshare operated by Rossya

This piece of news was found on two Finnish aviation sites (flightforum.fi and lennalomalle.com) and it is confirmed by
finnair.com (http://www.finnair.com)

There will be twice a week (Mondays and Fridays) an early morning flight starting now. Hopefully, the frequencies will be increased to daily in the near future. Codeshares are necessary because of a very restrictive aviation agreement between Finland and Russia.

LED-HEL 06.45-06.45 offering excellent connections to all Finnair's morning flights to Europe and to the extra daily BKK flights during the winter period.
HEL-LED 07.35-09.35 offering connection from almost every domestic destinations and Delhi and during the winter period to the extra overnight BKK flights. The new flights are also important in competition with the train because in a couple of years the train trip will take just three plus between Helsinki and St. Petersburg.

Eastern Europe seems to be booming (not like Austrian but compared with earlier Finnair connections).

SU is also getting a second HEL-SVO flight some time next year

The timetable will be

HEL-SVO 11.10 - 13.50
SVO-HEL 09.20 - 10.20

My speculation is that AY will codeshare also on this SU flight.
I really hope that it will happen. Otherwise the New York - Helsinki -Moscow route will be ruined by a transit time of over 8 hours instead of the current 35 minutes. Finnair's morning flight will leave earlier than before with no connectivity from JFK. Ofcourse it is possible that the flight times for the JFK flights will also be changed, but the AY timetables don't show such a change.

The new SU flights show also AY code^ now. The Rossya flights show AY code only until April.:td:

The new SU flights show also AY code^ now. The Rossya flights show AY code only until April.:td:

Thanks nordic for posting this.

These new flights now provide TWO great daily connections with AY from LHR-SVO:

LHR 1020 HEL1515
HEL 1700 SVO 1945

and -
LHR 1200 HEL 1655 (BA codeshare)
HEL 1845 SVO 2130 (SU codeshare)

as well as the useful overnight connection -
LHR 1820 HEL 2315 (BA codeshare)
HEL 0815 SVO 1055

And 2 great connections on the return -
SVO 1145 HEL 1230
HEL 1405 LHR 1510

and -
SVO 1700 HEL 1755 (SU codeshare)
HEL 1930 LHR 2040

as well as on Sundays -
SVO 0920 HEL 1020
HEL 1125 LHR 1235

Does anyone know why the planned fourth flight to Dusseldorf has disappeared from AY timetables? Any chance of upgrading the TXL services after Blue1's decision of ending their flights in Jan/Feb. How are the Air Berlin flights doing between hel-TXL/DUS?

Does anyone know why the planned fourth flight to Dusseldorf has disappeared from AY timetables? Any chance of upgrading the TXL services after Blue1's decision of ending their flights in Jan/Feb. How are the Air Berlin flights doing between hel-TXL/DUS?

Grrr, what is it lately with the marketing/planning departments? :mad: DUS is a very, very important station for AY and should not be neglected like it is now (poor lounge, Embraers on over 2 hour flights, cold meals in Y etc.)

How are the Air Berlin flights doing between hel-TXL/DUS?

I can report back on this, I'm taking both of these flights next week :).

I was on the inaugural AB HEL-DUS and on HEL-TXL-HEL on the first week of operations and both flights had very healthy loads back in 2006.

I took HEL-TXL//DUS-HEL with AB last month. HEL-TXL was maybe two thirds full, DUS-HEL fully packed. I must say I did not expect anything, and was quite pleasantly surprised; only the LTU plane from DUS seemed a bit worn out, but it might have just been the colour scheme that I didnät like.

However, if the price difference were only small, I'd definitely prefer AY, even with the new Recaro seats (which I don't find all that bad in fact). However, Finnair to/from TXL seemed to be almost zeroed out for all suitable dates.

Grrr, what is it lately with the marketing/planning departments? :mad: DUS is a very, very important station for AY and should not be neglected like it is now (poor lounge, Embraers on over 2 hour flights, cold meals in Y etc.)

Fully agreed. I really cannot understand why AY tries to save so much with lounges, there's a very nice and large BA lounge @DUS, but AY uses the el cheapo option Hugo whatever, as they do at soo many other locations as well. Luckily there's OW and this is only affecting those premium pax who do not fly OW regularly. Though, inside Schengen this is often an issue as BA lounges are at different terminals/areas etc.

I am writing this from BA F lounge at LHR T1 and even here, at BA's home base, AY doesn't cooperate with their alliance partner when it comes to lounges, simply unbelievable to me...

Fully agreed. I really cannot understand why AY tries to save so much with lounges, there's a very nice and large BA lounge @DUS, but AY uses the el cheapo option Hugo whatever, as they do at soo many other locations as well.

My thoughts exactly. A simple agreement with BA over joint use of the Terraces lounges would be a big step forward. The Hugo Junkers lounge at DUS is not the worst one could encounter but "el cheapo" hits the right chords. Not what the aviation pioneer would have enjoyed himself, for sure. ;)

Luckily there's OW and this is only affecting those premium pax who do not fly OW regularly. Though, inside Schengen this is often an issue as BA lounges are at different terminals/areas etc.

Yep, the Schengen/Non-Schengen divide is a problem with BA lounges.

I am writing this from BA F lounge at LHR T1 and even here, at BA's home base, AY doesn't cooperate with their alliance partner when it comes to lounges, simply unbelievable to me..

Well, if things go like expected, The Wing and Pier will be my new "home lounges" soon. ^ Will then only credit to AY when in need to upgrade someone in the family or flying in the cheaper booking classes.

The new SU flights show also AY code^ now. The Rossya flights show AY code only until April.:td:

Isn't it actually a requirement from Russian authorities that all flights are codeshared in this situation?

SK and SU codeshares on all flights between ARN-SVO and CPH-SVO which started when SK wanted to increase the frequency. Incidentally SU increased their frequency as well...

SU is also getting a second HEL-SVO flight some time next year

The timetable will be

HEL-SVO 11.10 - 13.50
SVO-HEL 09.20 - 10.20

My speculation is that AY will codeshare also on this SU flight.
I really hope that it will happen. Otherwise the New York - Helsinki -Moscow route will be ruined by a transit time of over 8 hours instead of the current 35 minutes. Finnair's morning flight will leave earlier than before with no connectivity from JFK. Ofcourse it is possible that the flight times for the JFK flights will also be changed, but the AY timetables don't show such a change.

This seems a bit strange. Starting next summer the Russian passengers will actually get a worse connection than today.

Today:
SVO-HEL-JFK: 12:55-13:40 // 14:20-15:55
JFK-HEL-SVO: 17:45-08:50 // 09:25-12:05

Summer:
SVO-HEL-JFK: 11:45-12:30 // 14:20-15:55
JFK-HEL-SVO: 17:45-08:50 // 11:10-13:50

Added up, the travel time will increase with close to 3 hours, one segment will be operated by SU. Is this really a profitable move made by AY? On the press relase they claim that 25% of the passengers are connecting to USA.

With AA opening nonstop DMO-ORD, AY might lose some passengers that want to avoid SU and continue to earn AA/AY-miles.

By the way: have AY had a lot of misconnects on the SVO-flight to and from JFK?

Also: May this mean that AY will look into to more routes into US as the connections to SVO are better?

This seems a bit strange. Starting next summer the Russian passengers will actually get a worse connection than today.

Added up, the travel time will increase with close to 3 hours, one segment will be operated by SU. Is this really a profitable move made by AY? On the press relase they claim that 25% of the passengers are connecting to USA.

With AA opening nonstop DMO-JFK, AY might lose some passengers that want to avoid SU and continue to earn AA/AY-miles.

By the way: have AY had a lot of misconnects on the SVO-flight to and from JFK?



I think the new timetable makes sense. I believe the JFK-HEL inbound frequently delayed the HEL-SVO flight. If the JFK-HEL is more than 30 minutes late, then the SVO flight had to go without it, resulting in re-routings, eg on BT HEL-RIX-SVO.

Besides, the SVO-HEL-JFK flight is sold on price. I don't think they'll lose many (if any) customers because of the extra hours wait. It'll still be one of the fastest (if not THE fastest) one-stop connection from SVO to JFK.

As for the AA flight, that will be DME-ORD, not JFK.
http://www.domodedovo.ru/en/main/news/press_rel/?ID=1955
https://www.aa.com/aa/pubcontent/en_US/aboutUs/newServiceRoutes.jsp#nir

Starting next April AY will add a third weekly flight to Kiev. Together with the partner Ukraine International there will be six weekly flights with good connections to the afternoon Asia wawe.

Source: www.finnair.com

starting the 5th of April, the late evening flight to Paris and the early morning flight from Paris will be operated also on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings. On their web page (in Finnish) there is really a lot of marketing hype:There will now be 35 flights to Paris. The number of flights to Paris on Saturdays will increase by 25 %. Well, this is true (from four flights to five) but it sounds as an exaggeration.

According to YLE news, Finnish and Russian authorities have today agreed upon an adjustment to the bilateral air transport agreement, which will allow Finnair to start flights to the city of Yekaterinburg in Ural region coming Autumn.

Finnair has been planning this route for quite some time already (I think they intended to open it already in 2006). Thanks to the new air transport agreement, also frequencies to Moscow and St Petersburg will increase.

According to YLE news, Finnish and Russian authorities have today agreed upon an adjustment to the bilateral air transport agreement, which will allow Finnair to start flights to the city of Yekaterinburg in Ural region coming Autumn.

Finnair has been planning this route for quite some time already (I think they intended to open it already in 2006). Thanks to the new air transport agreement, also frequencies to Moscow and St Petersburg will increase.

Yekaterinburg is a step in the right direction. Next maybe Nizhny Novgorod?

Also wondering how those Toyota executives and London bankers are enjoying the new LCC seats and Embraers on their Russia flights?

More details on Russian and Far-East frequency increases:

Quotes from Finnair Group Press Releases:
Finnair plans flights to Yekaterinburg - More flights to Moscow and St. Petersburg (http://www.finnairgroup.com/group/group_11_2_1.html?&Id=1203599685.html)

Finnair is planning to begin scheduled flights next autumn from Helsinki to Yekaterinburg, located in the Urals. In air transport agreement negotiations between Russia and Finland it was also agreed that the number of Finnair and Aeroflot joint flights to and from Moscow will rise in April to four per day, and that the number of St. Petersburg flights operated by Finnair in cooperation with the airline Rossiya will rise to 22 per week.

Finnair plans to fly to Yekaterinburg three times per week. The city is the main centre of the Urals Federal District with good connections to all parts of the vast region of Siberia.

In 2009 the companies intend to fly between Helsinki and St. Petersburg four times per day, i.e. 28 times per week, similar to the arrangement between Helsinki and Moscow.


Mumbai & Hongkong (this one available in Finnish only at the moment)

- An additional weekly BOM flight (HEL-BOM Friday, BOM-HEL Saturday) starting 1st June 2008

- HEL-HKG-HEL goes daily starting 26 April. (Though this is old news, I think)

According to the Times Of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Finnair_eyes_India-US_route/articleshow/2831607.cms)Finnair to expand to Chennai, Bangalore, Dallas and Houston.

Big plans - where to get the all the needed A/Cs?

According to the Times Of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Finnair_eyes_India-US_route/articleshow/2831607.cms)Finnair to expand to Chennai, Bangalore, Dallas and Houston.

Big plans - where to get the all the needed A/Cs?

Dallas and Houston might be more interesting for pax from/to Moscow and St.Pete (after Gazprom moves there) I doubt that AY can compete with BA, LH, VS and Indian carriers on the India - US route with anything but price.

Why start new destinations when existing ones do not have enough capacity? Seoul needs to become daily ASAP, Beijing and Shanghai to get a second daily flight to separate biz and leisure pax, Tokyo to get any slots possible...

Starting next April AY will add a third weekly flight to Kiev. Together with the partner Ukraine International there will be six weekly flights with good connections to the afternoon Asia wawe.

Source: www.finnair.com

Starting the 22nd of June there will be one additional codeshare flight. Thus there will be daily flights (3 times a week by AYand 4 timnes a week by Ukraine International).

In order to make this thread current I just add the information that has been discussed on other threads. Finnair has started codeshare flights with Icelandair (FI) to Reykjavik. BTW I like that Finnair has sticked to its traditional AY code (Aero O/Y) and did not choose to use FA (Finnair's subsidiary Finnaviation used that code). Icelandair's FI is also sometimes mistaken to be that of Finnair's.

There does not seem to be any flights to Ljubljana next winter. However, last winter the flights to Gdansk were cancelled but next winter they seem to operate on a year around basis.

Let's see what happens to the newish overnight European flights to many destinations (AMS, OSL, MAN, MUC, WAW etc) after the rescheduled Delhi flights. There is no need for connection flights to Asia from Europe in the early morning. Can business connections to just Helsinki and maybe to MOW, LED and TLL keep these flights going.

There will be daily non-stop flights to OTP during the winter period. However, the night stopover to WAW will not be started.

Source: www.finnair.fi

Manchester
The newly started night stopover will be cancelled at least during the winter period

Munich
The night stopover has disappeared. Not sure if it was ever started.

Hamburg
The midday flight will be cancelled at least during the winter period

Source: www.finnair.com

I guess this is connected to the revised longhaul schedules and the turbulent times of air travel.

I don't think it has been mentionned that the HEL-CAN (Guangzhou) flights will be dropped from AY routes.

I don't think it has been mentionned that the HEL-CAN (Guangzhou) flights will be dropped from AY routes.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=840317

A Finnish site (www.flightforum.fi) showed a link to a news agency http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1557680/japan_finland_agree_to_boost_flights/, which said that Japan and Finland have agreed on an increased number of flights between the two countries. The most important feature is that Finnair will be able to fly daily to Narita in 2010 when the extension of the runway will be completed. I think this will happen. They were the first airline to operate non-stop flights from Western Europe to Tokyo in 1983 (?) so it took only 27 years to increase the flights on a daily basis. Well, Finnair has not yet announced that they will increase the number of flights, but I think it will happen ntw these two Oneworld hubs.

Also flights to Osaka could be operated 10 times a week and flights to Nagoya could be operated on a daily basis. They just cut the flights to NGO from 4 to 3 times a week, so it is not probable that it would happen anytime soon. I doubt even Osaka although Finnair has has said that they would like to operate to some of their Asian destinations twice a day.

AY has many customers who prefer to fly from Haneda and connect at Kansai. So unless Narita gets some sort of revolutionary new rapid transit connection from downtown Tokyo, KIX should be quite safe. NGO can do on it's own as a mini-hub to domestic Japanese destinations and for the smart flyer also to regional Chinese and Korean cities.

AY has many customers who prefer to fly from Haneda and connect at Kansai. So unless Narita gets some sort of revolutionary new rapid transit connection from downtown Tokyo, KIX should be quite safe.

Fully agree with this. Flying to NRT and going to Tokyo is a bit like flying to Helsinki and to physically land in Jyväskylä, in terms of ground transportation ;)

AThe most important feature is that Finnair will be able to fly daily to Narita in 2010 when the extension of the runway will be completed.


Now, there is even an official press release on www.finnairgroup.com (http://www.finnairgroup.com/group/group_11_2_1.html?&Id=1222409227.html)

Brussels
Next January AY will start a new flight to Brussels. It will leave later than the last SN flight out of Helsinki and it will be the first flight from Brussels to Helsinki (currently the first flight is operated by SN). The codeshares with SN are still shown but I wonder if this is some kind of an indication of SN switching partners in Finland (Blue1/SAS) after the Lufthansa deal. Any way, its a good move on this important route.

Seoul
There will be an additional sixth flight a week to Seoul.

Nagoya
The frequency will return to four next summer.

According to www.flightforum.fi AY will return to Bergen next summer after a few years' pause. I thought that Norwegian was supposed to feed passangers from Scandinavia to Asia.

According to www.flightforum.fi AY will return to Bergen next summer after a few years' pause.

This is good news indeed. However, I wonder why in this forum my proposal of adding Strasbourg to the AY network has always been turned down "because there is not enough industry in the region"... Obviously there must be more industry in Bergen than in Strasbourg and in its neighbouring Freiburg i.B., Metz, Colmar and Basel together! :rolleyes:

This is good news indeed. However, I wonder why in this forum my proposal of adding Strasbourg to the AY network has always been turned down "because there is not enough industry in the region"... Obviously there must be more industry in Bergen than in Strasbourg and in its neighbouring Freiburg i.B., Metz, Colmar and Basel together! :rolleyes:

Yes, and all of those places nicely covered by highspeed rail connections from Stuttgart. ;) Strasbourg even gets the TGV from there.

Yes, and all of those places nicely covered by highspeed rail connections from Stuttgart. ;) Strasbourg even gets the TGV from there.

True, but if you are travelling to Asia, then a fast connection via HEL is certainly far more attractive than a combination with trains, a domestic flight and a connecting flight let's say via FRA. Not to mention all the mess at railway stations and problems with currying the luggage. :mad:

Perhaps it may turn out that I'm wrong, but I mean that AY should at least try Strasbourg. It would certainly be an interesting destination also for Scandinavian PAX. :rolleyes:

OT: High speed trains are a clever and convenient alternative to very many short flights within Central and Southern Europe. Such as Paris - Brussels, Paris - Lyon, London - Paris, Barcelona - Madrid, etc. And between many German destinations as well.

What makes that worse an alternative to a flight? Train stations are located centrally, no harassing safety measures, plenty of work space in the train, no lost luggage, and actually saving in time and cost. Modern suitcases can -besides - be pulled easily instead of carrying...;)

Obviously there must be more industry in Bergen than in Strasbourg and in its neighbouring Freiburg i.B., Metz, Colmar and Basel together! :rolleyes:

Actually (also according to www.flightforum.fi (http://www.flightforum.fi/forum/index.php)) the Bergen flight is geared towards Japanese packet tour tourists, who are circling Northern Finland and Norway, and then fly back to Japan from Bergen via Helsinki.

So, not a business destination :D

Frequencies have been reduced from 28 week to just 19 per week. Finnair has reduced 2 flights and Aeroflot 7 flights per week. This should change back to normal next spring.

The wording of the press release "The arrival of the winter timetable, however, sees the removal of Guangzhou and Gdansk from the route selection" and the fact that you can't find Gdansk on Finnair's online timetable suggest that Gdansk won't return next summer. I wonder how Wizzair is doing on their Turku-Gdansk route. At least Polish workers from the ship-yard in Turku and the nuclear power plant construction site in Olkiluoto should fill the planes.

Starting next April there will be 13 weekly flights to OTP. I am quite surprised. I wonder if Sofia will follow some day. Or is the Romanian economy so much better than that of Bulgaria?

Starting next April there will be 13 weekly flights to OTP. I am quite surprised. I wonder if Sofial will follow some day. Or is the Romanian economy so much better than that of Bulgaria?

Wow, twice daily IS a lot for BUH. Good for me, as it removes the BUD transfer needs. Bad for me, as I have no reason for stopovers in BUD and only 2 segments i/o 4 :)

. Bad for me, as I have no reason for stopovers in BUD and only 2 segments i/o 4 :)

Well, MA fares are usually lower than AY's, so that's reasoning enough to choose the detour. Financial reasoning usually works well with the corporate beancounters :)

Well, MA fares are usually lower than AY's, so that's reasoning enough to choose the detour. Financial reasoning usually works well with the corporate beancounters :)

As long as MA is in the air...

This seems a bit strange. Starting next summer the Russian passengers will actually get a worse connection than today.

Today:
SVO-HEL-JFK: 12:55-13:40 // 14:20-15:55
JFK-HEL-SVO: 17:45-08:50 // 09:25-12:05

Summer:
SVO-HEL-JFK: 11:45-12:30 // 14:20-15:55
JFK-HEL-SVO: 17:45-08:50 // 11:10-13:50

Added up, the travel time will increase with close to 3 hours, one segment will be operated by SU. Is this really a profitable move made by AY? On the press relase they claim that 25% of the passengers are connecting to USA.

With AA opening nonstop DMO-ORD, AY might lose some passengers that want to avoid SU and continue to earn AA/AY-miles.

By the way: have AY had a lot of misconnects on the SVO-flight to and from JFK?

Also: May this mean that AY will look into to more routes into US as the connections to SVO are better?

What happened actually with the SVO flights. I noted now that AY is back in it's original schedule with the AY flight perfectly fit in between the arrival of AY6 and departure of AY5.

Did they ever try the schedule as announced last year?

There will be two additional flights next summer. These afternoon flights will be operated by embraers. Quite spartan if you ask me. They probably had to act even before they started. Now with four flights against daily flights by TK they can be succesful and maybe get some loyal connecting passengers from/to Japan even though the middle eastern carriers are hard to beat.

There will be two additional flights next summer. These afternoon flights will be operated by embraers. Quite spartan if you ask me.

Yes the spartan Embraers: pretty planes, bad seats... Next summer the HEL-IST must be their longest E-Jet flight (3h15min) but HEL-GVA (3h) not much behind.

According to AY's online timetable the night stop flights to the above mentioned cities will be cancelled: I did not check the starting dates.
BRU, ARN, CDG and LHR seem to stay in addition to MAD and LIS.

These reductions are in addition to WAW, MAN and MUC which were operated only a short period or were not even started. Sad times.

According to AY's online timetable the night stop flights to the above mentioned cities will be cancelled: I did not check the starting dates.
BRU, ARN, CDG and LHR seem to stay in addition to MAD and LIS.

These reductions are in addition to WAW, MAN and MUC which were operated only a short period or were not even started. Sad times.
CDG? Isn´t there a heap of transfer pax from the early morning AF arrivals on that flight?

CDG? Isn´t there a heap of transfer pax from the early morning AF arrivals on that flight?

Sorry, I misread these posts. It looks like the overnighter at CDG it still staying, as is stated above.

Still a 7.35 departure time makes for a lot of uncomfortably short connections from the early AF arrivals - at the huge mess known also as "CDG".

Yes the spartan Embraers: pretty planes, bad seats... Next summer the HEL-IST must be their longest E-Jet flight (3h15min) but HEL-GVA (3h) not much behind.

The cabin staff do not like the Embraer as the front galley is freezing cold to work in. Biz pax do not like it for the same reason (front cabin is bloody cold) and for other disadvantages. Finnair top management has admitted that they have had "a lot of trouble" with this plane...

The cabin staff do not like the Embraer as the front galley is freezing cold to work in. Biz pax do not like it for the same reason (front cabin is bloody cold) and for other disadvantages. Finnair top management has admitted that they have had "a lot of trouble" with this plane...

I wonder if the beancounters still love it. When it was introduced to the AY fleet there were some articles in the Finnish press dubbing it nothing short of "a miracle jet" - allowing AY to operate longish thin routes with its great fuel economics. Sure it must be an improvement over the A32x series, but is it really that effective? Not for the short domestic routes at least - judging from the number of flights shifted over to the FC ATR fleet (which admittedly are pretty much the most fuel efficient passenger planes in the whole world - apart from the A380) in the recent years.