With winter getting closer, Finnair is setting out its plans for the season, and beyond into 2021.
Finnair Airbus A350-900 Marimekko – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
The airline has chosen to trim its flight schedule for the winter season in line with customer demand while planning to boost frequencies during spring 2021. It’s put down to demand softening due to travel restrictions.
For the winter season (25 October 2020 to 31 March 2021), Finnair will serve 45 domestic and European destinations with reduced weekly frequencies on almost all routes.
In terms of its long-haul network, the airline will serve for both passengers and cargo:
- Tokyo
- Seoul
- Hong Kong
- Shanghai
- Nanjing
- Bangkok (Cargo HEL-BKK, Cargo and Passengers on the BKK-HEL leg.
Cargo Only
- Singapore
- New York.
In total, Finnair will fly 75 flights a day between November and March 2021. This compares with the previous 350 flights a day flown in 2019. In addition, the airline will close its lounge in the Schengen part of Helsinki Airport (with the Non-Schengen lounge closed since March).
Looking forward to Summer 2021
Finnair is trying to plan for next year – with services that were meant to start this year moving forward, with routes to Busan (South Korea) and Tokyo Haneda (Japan) to open for Summer 2021. However, the airline has confirmed routes to San Francisco (USA), Xi’an, Beijing-Daxing (China) an Sapporo (Japan) won’t be making the cut and are suspended.
In Quotes
Ole Orvér, Chief Commercial Officer, Finnair, said:
“We continue to maintain critical air connections for our Europe-Asia transfer passengers and for Finland.
“The pandemic situation and the related travel restrictions continue to have a heavy impact on demand for air travel, and thus it is not feasible to operate all the flights we in May planned for this winter.”
In regards to the 2021 plans, he added
“Our network will expand and we will increase weekly frequencies during the spring”,
“We continue to follow the demand outlook and will be updating the summer 2021 traffic program accordingly in early 2021. We of course hope that travel restrictions and the pandemic situation will alleviate by then, so that we can increase our flight offering.”
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