Strikes Force Finnair to Cancel Around 550 Flights

Dark/Light Mode (30/01/24)  Finnair has confirmed that it expects to cancel approximately 550 flights due to the political strikes in Finland on 1–2 February.

Several employee unions in Finland have announced a political strike against the Finnish Government, scheduled to take place on 1-2 February 2024.

The strikes will have a significant impact on Helsinki Airport’s operations and on Finnair’s flight operations, and consequently, the airline expects to cancel approximately 550 flights between over those two days.

Finnair has approximately 280 flights per day in its normal traffic program, so the vast majority of flights will be cancelled.

The airline will implement flight cancellations in its systems one flight at a time, starting from this morning (Tuesday, 30 January 2024), with customers being offered alternative routings.

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

Customers on long-haul flights with onward connections from Helsinki on 1-2 February will be routed directly to their destinations, as there will be no connections from Helsinki during the strike.

During the strike, ground services, such as baggage loading, and inflight services such as food and drink offerings, may be affected and the flights that do operate on those days could be delayed.

“We have already given customers the opportunity to change their travel dates on Finnair flights. From January 30 onwards we start rerouting customers, using also other airlines’ flights,” said Jari Paajanen, Vice President, Finnair Operations Control Center. “We will do our very best to offer a suitable flight option to as many customers as possible, but the number of alternative flights is limited. We ask customers to kindly wait for the rerouting from us, as our customer service team is busier than usual and queue times can be long. It is unfortunate that the political strike will affect so many customers’ travel. We will work in close collaboration with our partners to ensure that after the strike, our flight operations can again commence as smoothly as possible.”

Due to the large number of cancelled flights and customers, processing the cancellations and rerouting customers takes approximately two days.

Earlier this month, Finnair offered customers the possibility to move their flights away from the strike days. Customers with bookings on Finnair flights between 1 and 2 February have been able to bring their trip forward or postpone it so that the travel date is no later than 15 March 2024.

If the customer's ticket type normally allows for changes, customers can change travel dates themselves in Manage booking service on Finnair's website.

If the customer's ticket type does not allow for changes, a cost-free change to the travel date can be made by contacting the travel agency that booked the ticket or Finnair customer service.

If it is not possible for the customer to change the time of their travel, they can cancel their reservation and apply for a refund for the unused ticket. Customers who have purchased a ticket from Finnair can do this in Manage booking on Finnair's website or by contacting Finnair customer service. If the ticket has not been purchased directly from Finnair, the customer should contact the travel agency that booked the ticket.

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