discoseal

I find AY to have some big holes in their network that they should easily fill, but don't, and I find this interesting. Helsinki is the quick way between Europe/Asia and North America/India without flying nonstop. On top of that, AY has apparently never served all of Greece(major tourist destination) or Dublin(high-tech industry for the Nokia types).
Any thoughts?

Andaman

Finnair used to serve ATH years back but it seems there isn't much demand for scheduled service. There are only Norwegian flying non stop from HEL this summer, nothing available in winter.

The charter operations keep Finnair busy in Greece, the Greek islands are the number one package holiday destination for Finns in summer.

HEL-DUB is an other challenging route, both Finnair and Aer Lingus have pulled out, now there's only Norwegian.

FinlandGuy

Blue1/SAS used to offer HEL-ATH service and I used it once on the ATH-HEL leg. The flight had probably a 50% load and operated as a night flight.

OH-LGG

And MA also had HEL-ATH-HEL -night flight service in 2005.

remymartin

I reckon what ATH needs is good connections from BRU, SXB and FRA at this point in time

Helsinki Flyer

AY serves like 10 destinations on the islands as charter flights. Enough for tourists. ATH has no business left if they ever did.

AY also has tried STR and NUE but didnīt make them work. How about LYS or LIS? Former is a bigger market than DUB, but also easily reached By TGV from Paris or Geneva. LIS must be too far and only leisure. Would need onward connections to South America and Africa or something to make it work.

remymartin

LYS would be a fantastic addition!

FinlandGuy

AY was serving LIS a few years ago. It was an Embraer service with plane and crew doing an overnight there.

haapalainen

Even LYS was annonced a couple of years back but it got cancelled before the flights were started. Twice daily on E90.

discoseal

Outside of Europe, there are also quite a few holes--mainly CGK, KUL.
I doubt Oceania and CAN would be profitable in the short-term though.

OH-LGG

LIS was A320 -destination. Sometimes A321 also.

nordic

And now AY serves LIS with nonstop and connection flights by TP.

What makes the Gulf companies so succesful in Dublin, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle. Is it just connections to Pakistan, India and Australia. Aren't there any demand for AY's Asian destinations? Helsinki could offer easy transfer on connections eastwards because no passport and security checks are required from these EU non-Schengen destinations.

Another thing I wonder why there are not year round flights to Venice, Pisa/Florence and Nice. Aren't these popular destinations from Japan and China.

Malaysia used to fly from KUL to NYC via ARN and one of the most direct one stop flights from BKK to US East coast US would go via HEL.

In my dreams there would be connection from JFK, PHL, BOS, YYZ to 2-3 Indian destinations, BKk, KUL, SIN and of course to new Russian destinations which are now permitted.

nanyang

Wasn't KUL announced a few years ago also and then pulled before launch?

Not sure if for example BA have returned to KUL by now, but I think it's a tough market - at least yields are really poor generally. OK, traffic last year was up by 18-19%, but average yield perhaps -10%. Why AY would get into the mix is something I don't know.

CGK - I'm not too familiar with the Europe to Indo market, but what would drive demand here?

nanyang

heehee - having said that, Aegean seem to be doing well (which is great to see BTW as it's a well managed business):
http://en.aegeanair.com/investor-rel...announcements/

nanyang

In 2007 or so HEL-DUB had AY and KF in the summer + then FR DUB-TMP. EI left the market after summer 2013 (DY started summer only last year) and now it's only DY. I presume the fact it's mostly leisure and 3h flight time makes it less appealing.

SK traditionally have quite a few people between DUB and HEL. This year I've paid EUR600 o-w on that route.