NichCage wrote:

Also, when did Thai Airways fly to Helsinki, and when did they end it? Thai Airways must have made HEL work for a while, because I would assume lots of Finnish people are going to Thailand.

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

HEL-LAX i could see as a route. Maybe not even daily. Lots of One World Connections on both ends! I could see that working out.

Kikko19 wrote:

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

HEL-LAX i could see as a route. Maybe not even daily. Lots of One World Connections on both ends! I could see that working out.

Arn has daily SK to Lax, DY as well but less frequently. I'd love something more "extreme" : HNL 3x week... Would be catching dk/se/ru and baltics just for start. What do you think about it?

kruiseri wrote:

QuawerAir wrote:

What do you think?

These are my candidates:

1. Air China: Finavia's aim is that some Chinese airlines would launch flights to HEL within next three years. I think Air China is the most likely.
2. Air India: I read somewhere the Indian carrier would introduce flights to Helsinki.
3. Cathay Pacific: Passenger numbers on route between Helsinki and Hong Kong was 182,000 in 2016 and may rise up to approx. 220,000 in 2017.
4. Emirates: As of Sep 2017, Qatar Airways will operate Boeing 787 to Helsinki due to great demand. I believe there's more demand on the HEL-DXB -route.
5. Korean Air: The route between Helsinki and Seoul has seen rapid growth in passenger numbers within last few years. However, no Korean carrier operate on the route.
6. Thai Airways: HEL-BKK is the 2nd busiest intercontinental route from HEL with around 260,000 passengers in 2016.
7. Norwegian: Norwegian is reportedly planning to launch long haul flight from HEL in 2018.

Is there more candidates?
If there is, tell your expectations: the airline, weekly frequencies and the aircraft (largest aircraft is Boeing 777 at this time).

Note: Finnair, Japan Airlines and Qatar Airways already operate from/to Helsinki.

1. is not going to happen as Air China is with Star Alliance. They would not get any feed from Helsinki. Helsinki to East Asia is based on transit passengers between Europe and Asia.
2. I do not see this happening either. No O/D between HEL and India. Even Finnair shut down their BOM route a few years ago. Air India is also in the wrong alliance.
3. Strong maybe, if they can work out the feed with AY. Best would be to align with the afternoon bank to complement Finnairs red eye/early morning bank.
4. Maybe, although Qatar and Turkish have already tapped into that market pretty well.
5. Nope, wrong alliance. See 1 & 2. No significant O/D between HEL and Korea.
6. Maybe, they used to fly it. Would be competing with the AY's O/D traffic.
7. This is my strongest candidate of the seven above. Still a lot of ifs though. Destination would be the US or BKK.

The long haul operations from HEL are based on transit passengers. The O/D from Finland is strong enough to support maybe BKK and JFK, that's it. Everything else relies on the feed. That means that any long haul carriers coming to HEL would need to work out the feed issue. That in turn pretty much limits the options to OneWorld carriers. AA was here a few years ago and left, could not make it work. AY already does JFK,MIA,ORD and SFO so I do not see the demand for additional traffic from the US. It does not even make sense for AA to connect with AY's Asia flights, with the possible exception of DEL.

Best would be for JAL to upcauge/add frequencies. Although that too would be problematic as the schedules would only fit nicely with the AY afternoon bank.

ryan78 wrote:

ninspeed wrote:

Westjet from YYZ when they get their 787s I could see doing this at least two times a week..... there is a lot of travel to Canada from there during the summer months for the RV Rental market

I severely doubt Westjet or even Rouge for that matter would consider HEL. Finnair used to run a summer seasonal x3 weekly A330 flights from YYZ-HEL for years but they discontinued it 2 years ago and have not returned. I took that flight twice and both times they were packed full and I'd venture to guess that 90% of the pax on the flight were connecting to other parts of Europe and Asia. If Finnair couldn't make a x3 weekly seasonal flight work, even with all the feeder traffic through their hub, I don't see Westjet or Rouge making money at all. The market isn't big enough to warrant a direct, p2p flight when you can literally connect one stop from anywhere in Europe to all the major cities in Canada.

QuawerAir wrote:

Kikko19 wrote:

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

HEL-LAX i could see as a route. Maybe not even daily. Lots of One World Connections on both ends! I could see that working out.

Arn has daily SK to Lax, DY as well but less frequently. I'd love something more "extreme" : HNL 3x week... Would be catching dk/se/ru and baltics just for start. What do you think about it?

As far as I know Finnair considered Honolulu as the future destination in 2013, operated by A350.

QuawerAir wrote:

Lucky Air will be the next one. Maybe EVA Air or China Airlines at some point?

Nami wrote:

QuawerAir wrote:

Lucky Air will be the next one. Maybe EVA Air or China Airlines at some point?

Lucky Air is basically just charters for Chinese tourists, so not sure it really counts. I mean there's not even a website in English to buy tickets. Most likely Lucky won't stay in HEL for long but will come and leave quite quickly.