Originally Posted by
ahopkins767
Geography, my dear Smarty. Geography.
Russia snakes around from Finland in the North to Almost the Black Sea (near Turkey). Whereas Air France would go a little south on their route, Finnair would have to go like 3,000km south to then get back on track. If nothing else, that's a LOT of wasted fuel that passengers would ultimately need to pay for.
It's no less of an issue for AF, who will have to detour even further than would be the case for AY starting from HEL.
KLM was kicked out of Russian airspace a few years ago in a row about a Russian cargo liner losing its Schiphol slots (
KLM preparing for Russian airspace ban) and it caused all kinds of issues; KLM has currently suspended all flights to and from China, Korea and Japan due to the closure of Russian airspace while AF is maintaining only a skeleton service to those 3 countries.