From July, Finnair will gradually add frequencies and routes back to its network. Finnair will review its schedule on a monthly basis and will update it as travel restrictions are removed and demand starts to recover.
”We expect aviation to recover gradually, starting in July”, says Finnair Chief Commercial Officer Ole Orvér. ”Our intention is to operate approximately 30% of our normal amount of flights in July, and we will also start long-haul flights to our key Asian destinations. We will then add routes and frequencies month by month as demand recovers.”
Finnair will flexibly add flights as demand develops. The flight schedule will also take into account the changes in travel restrictions in different countries.
“Our recent customer survey shows that customers are already planning both business and leisure trips”, Orvér says. “We want to meet this demand with our network offering.”
Long-haul operations start from Asia
Finnair’s long-haul operations will commence in phases from July, with strong focus on Asia, which is strategically important for Finnair. Finnair will fly to Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai in Greater China (subject to government approval); to Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo Narita in Japan; and to Singapore, Seoul and Bangkok. Long-haul operations are supported by the cargo demand. In August, Finnair will start flights to Delhi and to New York, and in November to Tokyo Haneda airport. Finnair also has flights to Miami, Krabi and Phuket during the winter holiday season.
European operations serve key cities
On European routes, Finnair will first focus on key centres, and will in July fly to Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Gothenburg, Geneva, Hamburg, London, Malaga, Manchester, Moscow, Munich, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Riga, Tallinn, Stockholm, St Petersburg, Vilnius, Vienna and Zürich. In August Finnair will start flights to Barcelona, Milan, Madrid, Rome and Warsaw. During the summer holiday season Finnair will also operate individual flights to some of the holiday destinations in Southern Europe.
Domestic flying maintains key air connections
In July, Finnair will operate six domestic routes in Finland, flying to Kuopio, Mariehamn, Oulu, Rovaniemi, Turku and Vaasa. In August Finnair will start flying to Ivalo and Kittilä in the Finnish Lapland, and in September operations start to Kuusamo and Tampere. Finnair will not operate to Joensuu, Jyväskylä, Kajaani, Kemi or Kokkola during summer 2020. Decisions for these five destinations for winter 2020/2021 will be made later on, when there is more visibility to how the demand develops.
Flexibility for customers
Since March, Finnair has offered its customers extraordinary flexibility to change travel dates, and this continues. Customers can change their travel dates for all flights bought from Finnair’s own channels between 1 April and 30 June 2020 flexibly and travel within the ticket validity.
As Finnair publishes its flying schedule from July 2020 to end of March 2021, it is also cancelling those flights that will not be operating. Finnair will handle flight cancellations in phases, and customers will be contacted by the end of June about any cancelled flights they were booked onto.
A list of routes that Finnair will not operate during summer 2020 and winter 2020/2021 at all is available on Finnair’s Travel updates page.
- If a customer’s flight is cancelled, but Finnair still operates to the destination in question, Finnair does its best to automatically offer an alternative flight.
- Customers can seek a refund for cancelled flights.
- Customers, whose flights are cancelled, can change their travel dates until 31 May 2021 through Finnair’s website or customer service.
