Finnair faces wipeout of Asia business on flight bans

Finland’s national carrier has carved out a niche providing transit passengers from smaller European cities the shortest flight times to Asia. But the flights through its Helsinki hub to destinations like Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai rely on access to Siberian airspace. It won’t make financial sense to operate those flights if Russia’s airspace is closed, Finnair said yesterday.

HELSINKI: Finnair Oyj faces a wipeout of its Asian traffic as a tit-for-tat of airspace closures in Europe and Russia jeopardises its main long-haul strategy.

Finland’s national carrier has carved out a niche providing transit passengers from smaller European cities the shortest flight times to Asia. But the flights through its Helsinki hub to destinations like Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai rely on access to Siberian airspace.

It won’t make financial sense to operate those flights if Russia’s airspace is closed, Finnair said yesterday.

“For many of our North-East Asia flights, re-routing would mean considerably longer flight time, and operations would not be economically feasible,” spokeswoman Paivyt Tallqvist said in an emailed response to questions after the Finnish government said it was preparing to end Russian flights.

A reciprocal ban by Russia would bring significant consequences, “as our Asian traffic in practice stops,” she said.

More than a dozen European countries closed their airspace to airlines from Russia, which reciprocated with its own bans in an echo of the Cold War restrictions that caused airlines to fly circuitous intercontinental routes.

Asian traffic accounted for just under 40% of Finnair’s revenue last year, down from about 43% in the last full year before the Covid-19 pandemic that began in early 2020. — Bloomberg