Flying Yazata

Kauppalehti: Finnairin uudet reittisuunnitelmat olisivat tuoneet töitä sadoille – AKT:n kanta katkaisi hankkeelta siivet

I won't translate the whole thing, but summarising:

Finnair was planning to run next winter season some longhaul routes other than ex-HEL, since the travel restrictions to/from Finland are expected to hamper longhaul operations and the prolonged pandemic is really a burden to the company, taken how much fleet is grounded and revenue is down. The board of the transportation workers' union AKT didn't grant an exception to several mutually binding collective agreements for transportation workers at Finnair. Thus Finnair couldn't get any temporary leeway to give hundreds work next winter under terms that would've been a locally agreed exception and with terms less favourable (well, I guess being furloughed is more "favourable" then?).

Yeah, keep up the good work, AKT.

physicsdude

Makes me a little worried as I booked a longhaul ticket with Finnair in the latter part of this year. Hopefully, enough people get vaccinated by then so travel can start getting back to normal.

oliver2002

I can't think of any other routes... were they planning to run some MIA/DFW/CLT/JFK-Europe routes for partner AA?

ffay005

Could be charters or semi-charters ex-Sweden or Estonia, for example. Something like ARN-PUJ etc.

Flying Yazata

That hasn't been specified, but ex-Europe to some longhaul destinations. And yes, ffay005 mentioned Mexico and I assume it could've been one of the planned destinations. It's pretty obvious that the A330-300/A350-900 routes to Asia will be limited well into 2022, taken how we have delta variant and many Asian countries are cautious. Also Finnair mentioned slower vaccinations in Asia, which applies to e.g. Japan. Overall I now think Finnair's re-emergence will be slower than any of us hoped for.

Courmisch

Finnair probably does not have air corridor rights to operate flights to Asia from another country than Finland, if even another airport than HEL.

So even if Asia would reopen, that's not whereto Finnair would add routes, except perhaps Thailand.

CPH-Flyer

Japan they could operate from any EU country, except to Haneda which is not part of the open skies agreement.

I would imagine Singapore, Bangkok, and a few others have a fairly broad agreement with the EU as well.

The question really is whether any of these routes are attractive in the shorter term. I would imagine AY would have wanted to tap in to US to EU vacation markets.

Courmisch

Are you sure that Russia and China allow such a flight plan from Finnair over their land?

cistavoda

Probably not after that "outburst" by the editors in the 4 newspapers.

CPH-Flyer

I have yet to be on a Europe to Japan flight that entered Chinese airspace, they stay in the Russian airspace.

As long as AY have the traffic rights between origin and destination, and pay the appropriate fees to pass Russia, I am sure that Russia have no objections.

oliver2002

AY probably has a number of slots over Russia for their numerous N.Asia flights that they can utilize to fly over on some charter. That said, I doubt the option was to fly to Asia for another EU operator, its more likely to be a leisure destination in the Americas.

CPH-Flyer

With the exception of some Phuket runs now that it is again an option, I can't really see Asian destinations being an option, and US traffic was also my main guess for this now shelved plan.

Courmisch

Uh? I've been plenty of AY flights to Japan flying over Outer Mongolia and then Beijing area, to leverage prevailing eastward winds. Flights from Japan of course typically go up North, around DPRK.

CPH-Flyer

Truly never been over China on my way from Europe to Japan admittedly I never came from south of Munich, which may affect the routing.
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Finni

https://news.cision.com/finnair/r/fi...kholm,c3382780

Bangkok, Phuket and Miami nonstop flights during winter season 2021/2022 will be operated nonstop from Arlanda.

Norwegian longhaul flights are gone and AY has a lot of capacity so good thinking.