Finnair is anticipating the cancellation of approximately 550 flights on February 1 and 2 owing to political strike action, which will have a ‘significant impact on Helsinki airport’s operations and on Finnair’s flight operations’.
Industrial action by several employee unions against the Finnish government will result in the cancellation of ‘the vast majority’ of flights in the airline’s daily programme, although Finnair does hope to operate ‘a handful of flights during the flights’,
Cancellations will be implemented one at a time, starting from the morning of January 30, with customers to be offered alternative routings. Passengers on long-haul flights with onward connections from Helsinki will be routed directly to their destinations.
"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," said Jari Paajanen, vice president of Finnair operations and control centre. "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." He added that customers have already been given the opportunity to change their travel dates on Finnair flights.