WilcoRoger

The Finnish gov't is supposed to review the travel rules next week - I don't see how long they can keep this up in view of the rest of Europe being more or less open.

The Tallinn loophole is easy, take Lufti to TLL, 10 mins ride to the port and sail over. Or (speaking for our Southern neighbours) why not have a holiday in Estonia? Not just Tallinn, get out of there and see the country, it's really worth it. Relatively few people do and it's their loss.

florens

Fully agree with the second part of your post and as you say, let‘s hope the Finnish govt. will review and update the travel restrictions.

Tartu has a cool vibe and the Estonian national museum which is worth a visit. Pärnu has great beaches. Viljandi is a nice city as well. Saaremaa has Europe‘s largest meteorite crater. And throughout Estonia there are nice parks with hiking possibilities.

Courmisch

Finnish government does not want to allow travel to/from Sweden, so it can't allow travel to/from central Europe which has several countries on similar levels as Sweden. I don't think that the rules are not supposed to make sense, so there are no needs for the government to adjust them to close loopholes either.

WilcoRoger

Today the gov't announced that from 13/July travel will be back to normal to/from DE, AT, CH, SK, HU, SL, LI, IT, HR, CY, IE, GR in addition to the current few. Final decision on 10/July. Also announced threshold - 8/100k new cases in a rolling 14 days period.

spek

yes, taking a boatride to Tallinn, and rent a car from there to discover Estonia is convenient enough. Boatride 10-20eur. Would suggest to discover a bit @ Saaremaa & Hiiumaa as well.

Ed Size

So I need to ask AY to rebook. Hope they find some free seats for me.

What are the rules? I read it online it says, that I m only entilted to rebook free of charge when I did the booking on April 1st and later, I made the booking way before, but needed to change it because AY canceled my original flights. So is this technical a booking made after the 1st of April?

Jainzar

And let‘s hope Tönnies doesn‘t ruin it.

WilcoRoger

CS told me that as I booked my flight before March, there is no limits to the amount of change possible, but if I had booked after March, it'd be one change only. (I'm not sure into which category March itself falls)

Ed Size

That sounds good, I booked already 2019. I m just not sure when I confirm the new dates at the current situation. It looks als uncertain at the moment.

Courmisch

I wonder how they came up with the number of .000112 new cases per inhabitants over 14 days. It means countries with little testing could potentially be cleared for very wrong reasons, and it begs the question how often the allowed list will be refreshed (and how dependent territories are counted).

Arbitrary limits are sadly unavoidable if you want fact-based rules. But when it's not a round number (e.g. .00014 i.e. 1 per 10000 per day), it smells of picking a number based on countries to allow or disallow rather than rationality.

Of course, what remains most ridiculous is the lack of transitivity. AFAIK, Germany has reopened the border with all the Covid-naughty European countries (Spain, France, Benelux, Italy), so if Finland reopens the notional border with Germany, err...

WilcoRoger

8/100k is incredibly tight - and Ohisalo still missed BE & CZ which are also within that limit.

The EU is supposed to set twice that number when discussing opening the outer border for 3rd country travelers

and yes, DE is a loophole an elephant can walk through

nieszprot

Can someone let me know how Finnish authorities control people entering Finland? If I live in country in EU which is not marked as safe but I arrive from DE or GR how my place of permanent stay/nationality will be checked (if at all)?

WilcoRoger

I think nobody knows. My guess is they won't check.

Courmisch

If you can reasonably show that you were in DE or GR for the last 14 days, I suppose you would be fine.

If not (and I guess that's what your question is about), then it's very iffy. There will presumably be no checks on arrival at HEL, but who knows if the gate staff at your departure airport won't show a little bit of zeal.

Better to have a family visit or business invitation for the time being. Or arrive via ferry from Tallinn where there are most likely no checks at all.

ffay005

If you arrive from any other country than The Baltic states or Nordic countries (except Sweden), there will be passport control on arrival at HEL. They will check your eligibility to enter Finland.