By John Flett
Finnair Expands Operations to Asia for Summer 2023
Finnair recently announced plans to increase the frequency to destinations in Asia for summer 2023. The Oneworld member airline will resume service between Helsinki and Osaka, Japan’s Kansai International airport on March 26. In addition to the airline’s daily operation to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in the summer months, Finnair will also operate four times weekly to Tokyo’s Narita International Airport beginning March 27.
The carrier has also announced additional frequencies over the summer to Kong Kong and New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport. Both destinations will now be serviced daily from Helsinki to meet the increased demand.
Ole Orvér, Chief Commercial Officer at Finnair, said, “We are happy to be able to respond to the increasing travel demand between Europe and key Asian destinations. In summer 2023, we will be operating altogether 14 weekly connections between Finland and Japan, and we have daily connections to Delhi and Hong Kong. The Helsinki Airport’s spacious new facilities offers an excellent experience both for customers visiting Finland and those who continue onwards to one of our many European destinations.”
Finnair has been significantly affected in its recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic by the invasion of Ukraine, which impacted the ability of commercial airlines to operate in Russian airspace. Services to Asia were impacted, which mostly resulted in extended flight hours that made the feasibility of operation for commercial passengers unprofitable.
As a result, the airline has been undertaking strategic measures to reduce unit costs and last month announced the reduction of 150 positions in ‘executive, manager and expert roles.’ In addition, the airline has proposed changes to conditions of employment for cabin crew including ‘crew utilization efficiency, layover hotel rules and to additional pay per hour rules for long flights.’
Airline management has been undertaking negotiations with cabin crew based in Finland to facilitate a ‘subcontracting plan’ that could result in the loss of up to 450 jobs in Finnair’s Inflight services. The airline already utilizes third-party partners to provide inflight services for flights from Helsinki to Singapore, Hong Kong and India and on those routes to Doha, Qatar from Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark. In response to these proposed changes cabin crew initiated a 24-hour strike on November 20-21 that resulted in approximately 100 flight cancellations.
Commenting on the situation, Finnair Chief Executive Officer Topi Manner said, “Our target continues to be to find a savings solution together with our cabin crew. We now need a genuine will from the negotiators to find solutions that would allow us to continue inflight service with our own crew and avoid redundancies. Discussion on alternative solutions is a vitally important part of the change negotiations process.”
During his career with the airline, John held multiple leadership roles and was involved in projects such as the introduction of both the 777-200 and -300 type aircraft and the development of the IFE for the 777-300. He was also part of a small team that created and published the internal communications magazines for Air New Zealand’s pilots, cabin crew and ground staff, balancing a mix of corporate and social content.
John is educated to postgraduate level achieving a Masters degree with Distinction in Airline and Airport Management. He has been the course director of an undergraduate commercial pilot training programme at a leading London university and a member of Heathrow Community Trust’s ‘Communities for Tomorrow’ panel.
John is currently living in Canada and is contracted as an external instructor for IATA (International Air Transport Association) and other aviation-related organizations.
