Flag carrier Finnair said on December 12 that it has agreed with other parties to extend to 2025 the maturity on a €600 million pension premium loan.
The deal was needed for the airline "to maintain its cash funds in the prevailing uncertain operating environment", adding that it had "agreed with other parties to extend the guarantees and the loan".
Finnair said the repayment schedule has been rejigged to allow it "amortise the loan by 100 million euros every six months" rather than in full on December 2022. It is to repay the remaining two €1oo million tranches on May 15 2023.
The Finnish government had guaranteed the loan up to €540 million in 2020, with an unnamed bank stepping in with a guarantee of up t0 €60 million of it.
The carrier said it drew down the loan in three tranches in 2020 and had lined up two €300 million repayments in December 2022 and June the following year.
The guarantees were sought as the coronavirus pandemic and travel shutdowns hammered the airline industry. Finnair has since early 2022 faced the additional challenge of proximity to Russia, around which it has been forced to fly since Russia banned airlines from EU member-states from its airspace in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.