Finnair Expects Closure of Russian Airspace to Cause More Furloughs

(04 Mar 2022, 11:48 +07)  With the closure of Russian airspace causing considerable changes to Finnair’s traffic, the airline has called employee representatives to discuss plans regarding possible furloughs of up to 90 days, which, if implemented, would impact Finnair flight crews.

Finnair has estimated the need for additional monthly furloughs for pilots ranges from 90 to 200 and for cabin crew from 150 to 450 employees starting from April.

The final furlough need, however, will depend on how the exceptional situation progresses and what mitigations can be found and will be defined during the negotiations.

Finnair A350-900 reg: OH-LWB. Picture by Steven Howard of TravelNewsAsia.com

The negotiations concern all 2,800 pilots and cabin crew members in Finland.

Finnair is also evaluating the impact regarding employees outside Finland in those destinations where the availability of work is estimated to decrease.

Russia issued a notam (notice to airmen) on Monday, 28 February regarding the closure of Russian airspace from Finnish aircraft until 28 May 2022.

Finnair has since cancelled all of its flights to Russia until 28 May, and has so far cancelled a part of its Asian flights until 6 March 2022.

The airline continues to fly yo Singapore, Bangkok, Phuket, Delhi and from 9 March to Tokyo, avoiding Russian airspace.

The carrier is also exploring how best to operate part of its flights to Korea, and China with alternative routing.

“With Russian airspace closed, there will be fewer flights by Finnair, and unfortunately less work available for our employees,” said Jaakko Schildt, Chief Operations Officer, Finnair. “A large share of our staff has been on long furloughs during the pandemic, so the need for further furloughs feels especially harsh, and we are sorry for this.”

Passenger and cargo traffic between Asia and Europe plays an important role in Finnair’s network with over half of the airline’s revenue coming from this traffic, before the COVID19 pandemic.

During the pandemic, many Asian countries restricted travel but Finnair operated many of its routes there supported by the strong cargo demand.

Routing flights to avoid Russian airspace adds, at its worst, several hours to the flight time, and the increased jet fuel price combined with the longer routing weighs heavily on the flights’ possibility to break even.