I rode HEL-ORD on a 767 last Sep and it seemed pretty full. HEL is a great connection point from many places going to Asia. In fact, Finnair's whole business depends on providing these connections. The idea behind HEL-ORD is sound, but they need to market it better.

HEL is empty most of the time except weekday evenings. Many Finnair flights departing for Asia leave at that time and you have several intra-European flights getting into HEL at that time.