Finnair decides to further flight cut in October

National flag carrier Finnair on Wednesday has decided to cut the number of its flights in October following the impact of coronavirus outbreak.

The airline will reduce the daily flight number to 70-80 instead of the previously planned number of about two hundred flights daily, said a Finnair press release.

The demand for air travel in Finnair’s network has recovered slowly due to the development of the coronavirus pandemic and related travel restrictions, and hence the previously published traffic programme cannot be implemented in full due to low demand.

“However, as travel restrictions have a direct impact on demand, operating the traffic programme we published earlier is unfortunately not feasible,” said Ole Orvér, Finnair's Chief Commercial Officer.

Finnair serves 42 destinations in October, but frequencies will be reduced on almost all routes.

Route starts planned for October to destinations like Bergen, Barcelona, Madrid, St. Petersburg and Stuttgart will be postponed, as well as domestic destinations, Turku and Tampere.

Long-haul flights continue to focus on Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, which are also important cargo destinations. A Nanjing route is operated during September and October. Finnair will also continue cargo-only flights to New York and Singapore.

October 2019, Finnair flew about 350 flights a day and had more than 100 destinations in Europe, Asia and North America.