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Brexit speculation / impact for Finnair

Brexit speculation / impact for Finnair

Old Apr 2, 2018, 12:59 am
  #1  
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Brexit speculation / impact for Finnair

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Old Apr 2, 2018, 1:55 am
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It is true that passengers (including myself) often transit to North America (not just New York) via Heathrow. But it looks unlikely to become a problem. UK will most certainly resettle bilateral agreements with the USA and Canada - if only because AA, DL, UA and AC all have extensive operations at Heathrow and in the UK in general.

Likewise, British and EU carriers will most certainly retain their existing rights to fly between the UK and the EU. The biggest concern for airlines is the EU ownership rule, especially for IAG.

Since Finnair does not fly out of the UK to non-EU destinations, I don't really see the problem? Is there a concern that the transatlantic cartel will lose its immunity, or what? Or is it an indirect anticipation of IAG problems having ripple effects on Oneworld?
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 6:57 am
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There is no impact for AY. Why would there be, and how could there be? Transiting through LHR after Brexit is no different than international transits through any non-EU airport today. I was going to mention JFK and MIA as examples, but decided against it, because transiting through the US to another country is so much hassle. LHR, Brexit or no Brexit, will be just like it is today and a lot easier than any US transit.

Of course, theoretically the UK could choose not to make any agreement with Finland, cancelling all flights between the two countries. But how likely is that, and what good would come out of it?

The article, which was published in Finnish some days earlier, is one in a long line of "Brexit is bad" articles strongly promoted by our "unbiased" media.
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 7:35 am
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What is already happening is that British airlines establish subsidiaries inside EU as that will allow them to traffic EU . EZ has already done so, for instance. However, this is under scrutiny, as it is clealy just a front, put up to manouver around the regulations.


This passage of the article is very strange:
According to diplomatic sources, a Finnish negotiating group was able to introduce an addition to the proposal calling for the preservation of “a strong level playing field” in the negotiations. In other words, the group wanted to ensure that the talks would not only consider flights between the UK and existing EU countries, but would also take into consideration flight connections beyond the EU.
'Level playing field' has nothing to do with flight connections. It is about accepting ECJ rulings, which France is pushing very hard for (and frankly is only natural)
UK talks about adhearing to regulations "in spirit" but has set a "red line" when it comes to fully implement regulations and to adhear to ECJ.
What France is saying, is that it is unthinkable to allow an operator to traffic EU without adheraring to the same rules as everyone else. Level playing field.
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 7:55 am
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Originally Posted by intuition
'Level playing field' has nothing to do with flight connections. It is about accepting ECJ rulings, which France is pushing very hard for (and frankly is only natural)
UK talks about adhearing to regulations "in spirit" but has set a "red line" when it comes to fully implement regulations and to adhear to ECJ.
What France is saying, is that it is unthinkable to allow an operator to traffic EU without adheraring to the same rules as everyone else. Level playing field.
But if I recall correctly LX is not bound to the ECJ rulings if a flight doesn't start from the EU. So what is now the big issue if that already exists.
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 8:06 am
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Originally Posted by Jainzar
But if I recall correctly LX is not bound to the ECJ rulings if a flight doesn't start from the EU. So what is now the big issue if that already exists.
LX flies only to and from Switzerland. Thomas Cook (Tjreborg), TUI UK, Easyjet etc also have domestic flights in France, Germany etc and fly between Finland and Greece, Spain, Thailand etc.

Last edited by miikkak; Apr 2, 2018 at 8:22 am
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 9:02 am
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Here is an older article about France' position (and a few words about that it is not entirely obvious that flights UK-EU can continue after UK leaves. (I noticed most people here think they will)

https://www.theguardian.com/business...-justice-rules
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 9:48 am
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It seems a very fair article. Basically says that unless there is a deal then Finnair flights to / from / via the UK will stop. If there is a deal we won't know how much it mirrors the current arrangements until it happens and there are some players with a vested interest in changing the terms of the current arrangements. Unless you're involved (and maybe some people on here are) then there seems to be a lot of people thinking a deal will be done because it would be stupid and bad for everyone if there wasn't a deal.

Unfortunately stupid and bad things seem to happen a lot.

Some carriers are already inserting terms in their contracts that means if there is no deal they are not liable.
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 9:52 am
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Tinkicker, do you really believe there might be a situation where the UK and Finland will have no agreement on air services between the two countries, thus cancelling all direct flights?

Furthermore, do you believe a similar situation might occur between the UK and the rest of the EU countries, as well?

Wow.
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 10:34 am
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Originally Posted by ffay005
Tinkicker, do you really believe there might be a situation where the UK and Finland will have no agreement on air services between the two countries, thus cancelling all direct flights?

Furthermore, do you believe a similar situation might occur between the UK and the rest of the EU countries, as well?

Wow.
Yes. I'm not saying it is likely just that it is possible. The current UK and EU positions are incompatible and there are significant parts of Brexit that seem unresolvable at the moment (e.g. Irish border). So if air services form part of an overall deal which has to also resolve all the other things (and on the current timeline) then there may not be a deal and the air services agreements will fall with insufficient time to do something else.
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 10:42 am
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If a recall Finland is in the EU and under the EU law no single country can work a bilateral agreement. The UK has to negotiate a new travel deal with the EU.
1- the U.K. has no individual agreement with USA or Canada . ( this agreement was signed by the EU with USA and Canada.
2- UK can not signed any bilateral agreements until it has fully exited the EU.
3- It doesn’t matter if it’s Finland or Malta the same problem will affect all the flights between the EU and the UK
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 10:50 am
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Finland does have bilateral agreements with a host of countries. Trafi: "Agreements can also be concluded between two individual states. Bilateral agreements are often used to agree on air services, e.g. route destinations. Recently, air transport agreements between the EU and third countries have become more and more common alongside bilateral agreements."

https://www.trafi.fi/en/aviation/reg...nal_agreements
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 10:58 am
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Originally Posted by ffay005
...

Furthermore, do you believe a similar situation might occur between the UK and the rest of the EU countries, as well?
...
I guess what we know is that unless something is agreed flights will stop. There is no automatic fallback, it is either nothing or something newly agreed.

Is any of it likely? I have no idea. On one hand, it surely looks like madness to not get a new agreement.
On the other hand, to me it looks like this is the card UK is playing constantly;
"It would be madness to not have new agreements and so we will demand the unreasonable as EU will have to take it, otherwise they will be worse off".

Finally, there is a very vocal part of UK government advocating an exit without any agreements. Isn't even the current UK position (with the unreasonable demands) an attempt from the PM to find a middleway within her government to avoid an exit without agreements? It is not unthinkable that the PM fails.
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 11:10 am
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Originally Posted by ffay005
Finland does have bilateral agreements with a host of countries. Trafi: "Agreements can also be concluded between two individual states. Bilateral agreements are often used to agree on air services, e.g. route destinations. Recently, air transport agreements between the EU and third countries have become more and more common alongside bilateral agreements."

https://www.trafi.fi/en/aviation/reg...nal_agreements
Why would Finland or any other country sign a deal allowing a foreign airline to traffic the same route as they do, only without the obligations the EU carrier has?

BA will demand an agreement where ECJ has no jurisdiction (is that even possible for Finland to sign?!), allowing BA to undercut AY. All AY flights will still be under EU rules, it would only be BA et.al who can traffic the HEL-LHR route without EU regulations.
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Old Apr 2, 2018, 11:29 am
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This ECJ stuff concerns flights within (future) EU by UK carriers. So yes, if BA suddenly feels the urge to operate HEL-OUL, then I can see a problem there. And while this isn't a realistic problem for BA, it sure is problematic for UK-based lowcost carriers that fly lots of routes on the continent today.

But as far as flights between the UK and Finland are concerned, BA will be just another 3rd country airline, with the same rules and regulations that concern QR or JL when they fly EU routes. Somehow, AY and JL manage to cohabit the HEL-NRT route even if eg. EC261 is valid only on AY for the NRT-HEL leg, not JL. Why should and would BA be treated differently from JL?
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