New and cancelled destinations, major schedule and operational changes
 

I started a new thread for information concerning changes in frequencies. They happen all the time and maybe it is not a good idea to start a new thread every time. I guess Flyertalk is basically a frequent flyer programme site and these news are not the core issues.

WARSAW
Starting next January Warsaw will get a new midday frequency allowing very good connection to the 1700 wawe of Asian flights. The morning flight will leave one hour earlier and the new noon flights from HEL to WAW will serve connectin passengers from New York (slower than before but moire reliable). Poland is going to apply the Schengen rules so the the previous connection time of 35 minutes would have become too tight (my own speculation)

on the other hand

GDANSK
has been cancelled for the winter period. So just Lisbon, Ljubljana and Bucharest have survived as the new European year-around destinations. Aviation to Poland is flourishing. From Finland it seems there is only demand for Warsaw. In the summer time also to Gdansk and Krakow. I wonder if there will ever be flights (AY or low-cost) to Pozen, Wroclaw, Lodz as to many, many other European airports.

AY seems to have tapped flourishing markets in Romania and Slovenia. Other choices to Asia from Ljublana and Bucharest probably take more hub time so HEL is competetive.

On the other hand, Gdansk is very much a biz destination despite the Sopot beaches so something is not going right there. Is it again poor scheduling like at NUE? I doubt further destinations in Poland are viable just yet. Gdansk and Warsaw cover the biz pax and Cracow tourism quite well.

On the other hand, AY does not have the German market covered as it could be. Nuernberg and Hannover have a broad company base and Dresden and Leipzig growing tourism. Hope to see further destinations added there.

The late expansion of HEL might also force AY to delay opening new routes until the 2009 completion. A pretty straightforward article in the Finnair Plius newsletter gave the image baggage handling is running at full capacity with severe space problems already.

Manchester

Starting the 28th of April, 2008 there will be a third daily flight (D ex 7).

Helsinki-Manchester 19:30-20:25
Manchester-Helsinki 07:30-12:15

offering good connections to Delhi and from the Asia evening arrival wave and offering a chance to get home even if an earlier flight from Asia would be delayed. Enables also one day visite to Helsinki.

Update on Warsaw

There will be a fourth daily flight from the beginning of May.
This time the flight will overnight in WAW.

A fourth daily flight to Düsseldorf
A new afternoon flight from the beginning of May 2008:
HEL-DUS 13.35-14.55
DUS-HEL 15.35-18.50

The new return flight offers good connections to the important Osaka route. As far as I know, there are many Japanese firms based in the Düsseldorf area. Of course othe Asian connections are also important for AY.

Thanks, this is a regular route for me and the DUS-HEL time looks very nice allowing for lunch meetings in Dusseldorf. At the moment there are 10.000 Japanese inhabitants in the Dusseldorf area.

Competition on Germany - China routes
 

Air Berlin/LTU has announced DUS - PEK/PVG flights 5xweek from May 2008 for launch fares of less than 300 euros including connecting flights from all major German cities.

As the "revised" Finnair economy class seat comfort and service do honestly not differ much from "upscale" LCCs like Air Berlin and Germanwings I'd expect many cost conscious pax choosing this option instead on the China routes.

Another reason for AY to add a Premium Economy/WTP style product to their range and try to move up into the BA/CX/JL sphere of OW for good.

Interesting offer. Tackling just one far east destination will not probably introduce much competition for AY, but I read that they have 25 Dreamliners ordered and may (oops, using these, not so) soon be tackling many other destinations. Much can obviously be done with their 12 A330s... Düsseldorf as a hub is also interesting with dozens of more destinations in/onwards than Helsinki.

The major advantages of AY would be belonging to the OW and seamless integration with its network. AB connections may not be as easy, even though it guarantees the connections unlike the LCC PP-carriers (I would not touch with a rod...). Also the OW-perks offered to status-flyers may attract and keep customers. But definitely, something should be done to their current seating policies!

Anyway, I checked price examples for DUS-PVG-DUS 10th to 24th of June 2008. Air Berlin/LTU are offering discounted biz for 2400 euros while Finnair C prices start at 3500 euros (possibly including Embraer flights DUS-HEL-DUS and bus transfer both at DUS and HEL)

Even if the Air Berlin offering could only be compared to Premium Eco on other carriers (and as they offer flat beds I'm not even sure about that) this is exactly the growing middle market that AY will be missing if they don't roll out something similar. With prices around 2000 -2500 euros and service (plus mileage premium) to match AY could surely sell full prem eco cabins to ICN, PEK, PVG, NRT and NGO at least.

St Petersburg codeshare operated by Rossya

This piece of news was found on two Finnish aviation sites (flightforum.fi and lennalomalle.com) and it is confirmed by
finnair.com

There will be twice a week (Mondays and Fridays) an early morning flight starting now. Hopefully, the frequencies will be increased to daily in the near future. Codeshares are necessary because of a very restrictive aviation agreement between Finland and Russia.

LED-HEL 06.45-06.45 offering excellent connections to all Finnair's morning flights to Europe and to the extra daily BKK flights during the winter period.
HEL-LED 07.35-09.35 offering connection from almost every domestic destinations and Delhi and during the winter period to the extra overnight BKK flights. The new flights are also important in competition with the train because in a couple of years the train trip will take just three plus between Helsinki and St. Petersburg.

Eastern Europe seems to be booming (not like Austrian but compared with earlier Finnair connections).

OT: Second HEL-Moscow operated by Aeroflot
 

SU is also getting a second HEL-SVO flight some time next year

The timetable will be

HEL-SVO 11.10 - 13.50
SVO-HEL 09.20 - 10.20

My speculation is that AY will codeshare also on this SU flight.
I really hope that it will happen. Otherwise the New York - Helsinki -Moscow route will be ruined by a transit time of over 8 hours instead of the current 35 minutes. Finnair's morning flight will leave earlier than before with no connectivity from JFK. Ofcourse it is possible that the flight times for the JFK flights will also be changed, but the AY timetables don't show such a change.

The new SU flights show also AY code^ now. The Rossya flights show AY code only until April.:td:

Thanks nordic for posting this.

These new flights now provide TWO great daily connections with AY from LHR-SVO:

LHR 1020 HEL1515
HEL 1700 SVO 1945

and -
LHR 1200 HEL 1655 (BA codeshare)
HEL 1845 SVO 2130 (SU codeshare)

as well as the useful overnight connection -
LHR 1820 HEL 2315 (BA codeshare)
HEL 0815 SVO 1055

And 2 great connections on the return -
SVO 1145 HEL 1230
HEL 1405 LHR 1510

and -
SVO 1700 HEL 1755 (SU codeshare)
HEL 1930 LHR 2040

as well as on Sundays -
SVO 0920 HEL 1020
HEL 1125 LHR 1235

The fourth DUS frequence has disappeared
 

Does anyone know why the planned fourth flight to Dusseldorf has disappeared from AY timetables? Any chance of upgrading the TXL services after Blue1's decision of ending their flights in Jan/Feb. How are the Air Berlin flights doing between hel-TXL/DUS?

Grrr, what is it lately with the marketing/planning departments? :mad: DUS is a very, very important station for AY and should not be neglected like it is now (poor lounge, Embraers on over 2 hour flights, cold meals in Y etc.)