WIZ

Finnair is launching direct flights to the capital of South Korea, Seoul, in June 2008 with five weekly frequencies. The flights will be operated with Finnair's new Airbus A340-300 long-haul aircraft.

The majority of passengers are expected to be South Korean, especially during the summer season. The Seoul route will complement Finnair's constantly growing Asian network and support Helsinki's status as an important transfer point between Europe and Asia. Seoul will be Finnair's eleventh Asian destination.

Finnair will be the only airline to fly non-stop from South Korea to northern Europe. In addition Finnair will offer excellent connections from Helsinki to over 40 European cities.

"This is a natural continuation of our Asian strategy. Thanks to Finnair's growing European network we can offer the shortest and quickest connections to most European capitals," states Deputy CEO Henrik Arle.

The expansion of the Asian network is possible because of Finnair's long-haul fleet renewal and increase. The new aircraft will help Finnair benefit from traffic growth and further develop its Asian route capacity. The A340-300 aircraft that arrived this year will be supplemented by two further aircraft of the same type next year.

Demand for air travel between South Korea and Europe is growing every year. Korea offers a great deal of potential for leisure travel from Asian to Europe and Korea itself is enjoying increasing popularity as a tourist destination among Europeans. A great deal of business travel from South Korean export companies is also expected on the route.

The flight time from Helsinki to Seoul is 8 hours and 55 minutes. From Seoul to Helsinki it is 9 hours and 50 minutes.

Finnair Plc
Communications
26.6.2007

Here's the link:

http://www.finnairgroup.com/group/gr...182841564.html

kaiflyer

they're certainly putting a lot of their eggs in the Asia-basket...
Can't help but wonder how many more destinations they can still identify in Asia...

JuPe

At some point AY was communicating that there's still potential to increase flights to new Chinese destinations. Personally I still think that SIN shouldn't have been dropped, but if the policy is to do only non-stops...

NoWindowSeat

I miss it greatly too, BA via LHR is not (always) worth the extra comfort. AY to BKK/HKG + CX/TG is not too bad either but in the past when it was a single plane service it was much more comfortable, especially when coming back to Europe.

ORD Finn

Great news! I have been hoping for a direct route between Helsinki and Seoul for years... Have to say that I would have preferred KAL or Asiana flying this route but AY will do (hopefully they hire Korean staff)

ICN would be a nice hub for connecting to many destinations in Japan and China. It is such a nice modern airport too -- although far away from downtown Seoul. Unfortunately AY is a member of the wrong alliance.

bobbybrown

AY wanted to do codeshare with KE or OZ for the new HEL-ICN route, but it seems they failed. I doubt AY can sustain this route for a long time since they don't have any alliance advantage, and Seoul-Europe market is highly competitive - there are a lot of cheap fares. Looks like 5/week is too much.

nordic

With the exception of Korean flights to LED (don't remember if they already fly there) and to MOW it is the most direct flight (including connections) to most airports in Europe. It is the only OW flight to Europe and it could be possible (depending on the timetable) to make OW connection to Japanese regional airports. I think it is viable.

mosburger

I would expect AY also try to establish some codeshares on JL metal to NRT and NGO on the days no non-stop flights from HEL are offered. Maybe there will be some additional codeshare destinations in Japan as well. Kagoshima, Komatsu and Niigata being among the JL ex-ICN destinations.

Otherwise, I think AY will rely heavily on Korean biz and leisure pax to Scandinavia, Russia and the Baltics and vice versa. There might be some advantage flying ICN-HEL-ARN instead of ICN-CDG/FRA/LHR-ARN for example.

Anyway, OW could do worse than take a close look at one of the emerging Korean low cost carriers and maybe build up a sort of Korean BMI for domestic connections and routes to China.

nordic

Something like three hours less flying.

WIZ

Same thing goes for OSL or CPH. Flying ICN-HEL-OSL/CPH instead of ICN-CDG/FRA/LHR-OSL/CPH its a good option. I think its a smart move from Finnair.

True it saves abt 3 hours of time flying, and since Finnair's Asian flights are built so that theyhave a very short connection to other european and scandinavian destinations, its is an excellent option compared to the already mentioned CDG/FRA/LHR and e.g. AMS or any other mayor European hub for that matter when continuing to another destination.

eddyP

I'll certainly be using this as LHR-HEL-ICN rather than going LHR-HKG/NRT-ICN as I have previously. Provided the connections at HEL are as AY usually time them then it should get around 3 hours off the trip time.

Shame it's not starting by August this year, when I'm likely to be in Seoul

mosburger

I have heard Chengdu and Hangzhou being given some consideration in that order. Guangzhou is still not a daily. Maybe later Nanjing or Wuxi?

Japan is JL territory so they'll probably stick to the current hubs there (Sapporo might just be possible).

In Korea I guess the goal is to have daily flights to ICN. I personally would like to have OW attack both OZ and KE by adding nonstop ex-Europe flights to PUS and maybe onwards to Jeju but that remains to be seen.

bobbybrown

Okay.. can't wait to see how AY will cooperate with other OW members especially JL. And can't ignore the amount of time saving to any cities in nothern Europe. Also, AY will have some advantage to all OW fans as the only OW who connects Europe and ICN.

Actually the only destinations JL operates from ICN is NRT, KIX, and NGO, which are already AY's destinations. Other cities - kagoshima, sapporo, komatsu, etc. are codeshare flights operated by KE.

mosburger

NRT and NGO will still be interesting for codeshares as both HEL-NRT and HEL:-NGO are 4xweekly at the moment. KIX is daily but as we all now losing ground to both Narita and Chubu as a hub.

Using JL metal from ICN would save AY from some risk considering NGO loads and the hopeless task of getting more slots allocated at NRT. And Incheon beats PVG and PEK hands down for connections.

What would be really interesting is to have one of the "new" Korean airlines codeshare for domestic flights. Incheon - Jeju, Incheon - Daegu and Incheon - Busan once a day in both directions would do fine.

nordic

Finnair is still comitted to good connections to SIN. Starting next winter season AY/QF offer good connections to SIN via FRA thanks to the new evening/early morning flight between HEL-FRA.

The Venice flights seem to be popular. Next summer there will be four weekly flights instead of twice a week flights.

Source http://www.finnair.fi timetables