Finnair has trimmed its flight schedule for the winter season in line with customer demand, while planning to boost frequencies during spring 2021.

The update comes as the airline responds to a temporary softening of demand in the market due to widespread travel restrictions.

From 25 October, 2020 to 31 March 2021, Finnair will serve 45 domestic and European destinations with reduced weekly frequencies on almost all routes.

Finnair’s long-haul flights will focus on Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nanjing and Bangkok, which are also important cargo destinations. On the Bangkok route, Finnair flies passengers only on the BKK-HEL leg. Finnair will also continue cargo-only flights to Singapore and New York.

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.”

Due to the lower customer numbers, Finnair will temporarily close its lounge at the Schengen area of Helsinki Airport. Finnair’s lounges at the Non-Schengen side have been shut since March.

From November 2020 to March 2021, Finnair is now scheduled to operate approximately 75 flights per day, and it will continue to review its traffic program based on estimated demand, as the changing travel restrictions continue to impact demand for air travel. In 2019, Finnair flew about 350 flights a day and had more than 100 destinations in Europe, Asia and North America.

Updated flight information is now available on Finnair.com com and in travel agencies’ booking systems, from which cancelled flights have been removed.

Due to the continuing uncertainty created by travel restrictions, Finnair offers flexible change of travel dates for all flights booked between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021.

Affected Finnair customers will be contacted directly by the airline and offered an alternative flight wherever possible. Customers can also opt for a full refund of the ticket, if the new flight offered is not suitable.

Flights increase for summer 2021

Finnair has also updated its preliminary flight program for the summer season 2021, which starts on 1 April 2021.

“Our network will expand and we will increase weekly frequencies during the spring”, says Orvér. “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.”

Delayed from this year, Finnair plans to open its new Busan route to South Korea in the summer season 2021. Finnair also intends to start services to Tokyo Haneda Airport during the summer. However, flights to San Francisco in the United States, Xi’an and Beijing Daxing in China and Sapporo in Japan will remain suspended.

These latest updates to Finnair’s traffic have no effect on the company’s estimates of the financial result for 2020 presented in connection with its half-year report.