450 cabin crew to lose jobs as Finnair starts talks

National flag carrier Finnair has taken an initiative to cut up to 450 jobs of cabin crew by the end of next year.

The authority will start the change negotiations on November 23 with its cabin crew in Finland to discuss its plans to subcontract inflight service on routes to/from Thailand and the US to partners, said Finnair in a press release on Wednesday.

The plan is a part of the efforts to restore Finnair’s profitability by reducing unit costs and strengthening unit revenues.

Finnair made considerable losses during the covid-19 pandemic, and the closure of Russian airspace significantly impacts Finnair’s ability to generate profit.

If realized, the subcontracting plan could result in reducing up to 450 jobs in Finnair’s Inflight services.

Finnair currently employs about 1750 cabin crew members in Finland. The cabin service for Finnair’s Singapore, Hong Kong and India routes as well as for the Doha routes from Stockholm and Copenhagen is provided by Finnair’s partners already.

“Our target continues to be to find a savings solution together with our cabin crew. We now need a genuine will from the negotiators to find solutions that would allow us to continue inflight service with our own crew, and avoid redundancies”, said Topi Manner, Finnair CEO.

Earlier in October, Finnair held negotiations to reduce about 200 jobs globally including 120 in Finland.

The negotiations concern about 770 employees working in executive, manager and expert roles but do not concern crew or other operative employees.