Coronavirus forces Finnair to cut 90% flights from April

National flag carrier Finnair will reduce about 90 per cent of its normal capacity, compared to 2019, starting from the beginning of April 2020 following the impact of coronavirus outbreak across the globe.

As of 1 April, Finnair will temporarily operate only about 20 routes, ensuring certain critical air and cargo supply connections for Finland during this exceptional situation, said a press release on Monday.

Finnair will start transitioning to the limited network immediately and will cancel between 1,500 to 2,000 flights from 16 March to 31 March.

The coronavirus epidemic has had a severe impact on demand for air travel, and several countries have set restrictions on air travel.

“The coronavirus epidemic has decreased air travel dramatically, but we want to maintain the most critical air connections for Finland also in this exceptional situation,” said Topi Manner, Finnair’s CEO.

“We continue to follow the situation closely, adding routes and frequencies to the traffic program as demand returns. In this situation, the capacity cuts are unavoidable – we cannot fly customers in a situation where we may not be able to fly them back home,” the CEO added.

As of 1 April, Finnair operates some routes with a limited number of weekly frequencies, if there are no additional travel restrictions set by the authorities.

In the domestic routes, the airlines will operate flights to and from Kuopio, Mariehamn, Oulu and Rovaniemi. During the Easter travel season (early to mid April) Finnair will also operate flights in Ivalo, Kittilä and Kuusamo routes.

In Europe, it will operate flights to Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Paris, Stockholm and Zürich.

Finnair will also fly to Copenhagen, Moscow, Oslo, St Petersburg, Riga and Tallinn once the travel restrictions to these destinations are lifted.

It will operate intercontinental flights to Tokyo.