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(30/01/24)
 Finnair has confirmed that it expects to cancel
approximately 550 flights due to the political strikes in Finland
on 1–2 February.

Several employee unions in Finland have announced
a political strike against the Finnish Government, scheduled to
take place on 1-2 February 2024.

The strikes will have a significant
impact on Helsinki Airport’s operations and on Finnair’s flight
operations, and consequently, the airline expects to cancel
approximately 550 flights between over those two days.

Finnair has approximately 280 flights per day in
its normal traffic program, so the vast majority of flights will
be cancelled.

The airline will implement flight cancellations in its
systems one flight at a time, starting from this morning (Tuesday,
30
January 2024), with customers being offered alternative routings.

Finnair A350-900 reg: OH-LWB. Picture by Steven Howard of TravelNewsAsia.com

Customers on long-haul flights with onward connections from
Helsinki on 1-2 February will be routed directly to their
destinations, as there will be no connections from Helsinki during the
strike.

During the strike, ground services, such as
baggage loading, and inflight services such as food and drink
offerings, may be affected and the flights that do operate on
those days could be delayed.

“We have already given customers the opportunity
to change their travel dates on Finnair flights. From January 30
onwards we start rerouting customers, using also other airlines’
flights,” said Jari Paajanen, Vice President, Finnair Operations
Control Center. “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. 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. It is unfortunate that the
political strike will affect so many customers’ travel. We will
work in close collaboration with our partners to ensure that after
the strike, our flight operations can again commence as smoothly
as possible.”

Due to the large number of cancelled flights and
customers, processing the cancellations and rerouting customers
takes approximately two days.

Earlier this month,
Finnair offered
customers the possibility to move their flights away from the strike
days. Customers with bookings on Finnair flights between 1 and
2 February have been able to bring their trip forward or
postpone it so that the travel date is no later than 15 March
2024.

If the customer’s ticket type normally allows for changes,
customers can change travel dates themselves in Manage booking
service on Finnair’s website.

If the customer’s ticket type does not allow for
changes, a cost-free change to the travel date can be made by
contacting the travel agency that booked the ticket or Finnair
customer service.

If it is not possible for the customer to change
the time of their travel, they can cancel their reservation and
apply for a refund for the unused ticket. Customers who have
purchased a ticket from Finnair can do this in Manage booking on Finnair’s website or by contacting Finnair customer service. If
the ticket has not been purchased directly from Finnair, the
customer should contact the travel agency that booked the ticket.

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