Thoughts?

Birmingham

Denver

I just flew Finnair for the first time three days ago on their A320 and A333. Absolutely loved it. Connecting in HEL was a breeze, and the AY premium lounge in the non-Schengen area was stupendous.

Living in FSM and going to southern India frequently, I wish they flew to DFW and MAA. I would take them in a heartbeat over AA and BA (and having to connect from T3 to T5). However, the closest I can get to that at the moment is ORD-HEL-DEL. Maybe someday...

lysflyer wrote:

Lyon, hopefully... it was planned to be served some years ago but it never happened

They are planning it again.

On 13 March 2017, Finnair stated it is considering the possibility of launching services to Lyon. Finnair sales manager for Southern Europe Javier Roig said: "I would really like to open Lyon by the end of the year and I will fight for it".

https://centreforaviation.com/news/finniar-considering-services-to-france-lyon-652103

CTS. which I think they want to do. same with PUS

I'm kind of surprised they haven't tried KUL yet. or have they?

wenders825 wrote:

CTS. which I think they want to do. same with PUS

I'm kind of surprised they haven't tried KUL yet. or have they?

They planned HEL-KUL service for 2007:

http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2006/09/25/finnair-to-fly-to-kl/

wenders825 wrote:

CTS. which I think they want to do. same with PUS

I'm kind of surprised they haven't tried KUL yet. or have they?

I think Malaysia airlines did but failed (don't count me on it)

I think Birmingham,Glasgow&Newcastle

LAX

wenders825 wrote:

CTS. which I think they want to do. same with PUS

I'm kind of surprised they haven't tried KUL yet. or have they?

In the other thread it seems like their government is now requesting PUS right for them?

This is something I've wondered a lot recently given that AY only needs one aircraft for most destinations in Asia (assuming were talking about long-haul) and the future A350s are not replacing A330s anymore but instead add capacity.

I actually happened to came across this little "hidden" interview of Finnair VP of Asia and Oceania from January 2016. It gives some insight into possible cities that have been floating around past few years.

You are perceived as Europe niche carrier to Asia. Any expansion of Finnair network?

J.L.- We will open this spring time new routes to Guangzhou and Fukuoka while also offering more frequencies to some of our top destinations such as Bangkok. We carefully evaluate expansion with a short list of new destinations. Let’s say that Taipei or Kuala Lumpur are high in our top list while we also study the possibility of flying into Indonesia.

We are also considering other destinations but we have also to look naturally at the revenue per passenger. For example, we would love to fly to Manila as they are limited connections to Europe. However, the yield per passenger remains relatively low. We face a bit the same yield problem in Jakarta but not to the same extend than Manila. However, we could also alternatively fly on a seasonal basis to Denpasar, Bali as it is a very attractive destination for European holidaymakers.

ASEAN.travel 26.1.2016

I would put my money on seasonal Sapporo.

I love Finnair, every time i've flown on them it has been a great experience.
I wish they had a regular direct PMI-HEL flight, since i'm Finish and i'd love to be able to fly directly to HEL, and from there just have to get on the train to Oulu.

I could've sworn I saw a thread a week ago saying Finnish media reported on them examining CTS among others. It's as if that thread went into finnair (pun intended).

I for one would love it if they flew CTS. Otherwise I'd say IAD for shits and giggles.

San Diego

DFW

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=ht ... MQ9QEIKDAA

Finniair should starts HEL-CMX 2 times a week.

Q

Boston
Also maybe Newark to add with their JFK flights

SEA, since they have a FF partnership now with AS Scandinavia is on my bucket list! Easy one stop in SEA from PDX for me would be great!

TPE. A huge untapped market, with TK practically out of the game and the only competition being EK and KL, it is very seducing a market to enter.

NKG, they have express their interest, Now Nanjing-Euro is served by lufthansa solo

St Barts with A350 service twice a week

In March 2013, Finnair announced a list of potential Asian destinations the airline is considering.

Source: https://centreforaviation.com/news/finnair-looking-to-further-expand-asian-network-in-coming-years-217219

Here is the list with updates:

Bangalore
Busan
Changsha
Chengdu*
Chennai
Hangzhou
Jakarta
Kuala Lumpur
Kunming
Manila
Mumbai
Nanjing
Sapporo
Taipei
Tianjin
Ulaanbaatar
Wuhan*

*Finnair also have considered Chengdu and Wuhan.

Fukuoka was also included but the airline already commenced flights in May 2016.

PHX!

Long haul: Would be cool if they returned to Toronto, with A350 thank you. But it's expected they'll announce some less served destination in NE Asia next, that works best for them.

Short haul: Relaunching LIS would be great, now they codeshare with TAP

Bombay

I have a friend who is a flight attendant at Finnair, i could ask her every now and then for inside classified info!

Europe: Stuttgart (very first), Birmingham & Lyon; later possibly also Cologne/Bonn, Bremen, Rotterdam/Hague, another London airport and Basel, (Bratislava, Bucharest, Minsk, Marseilles, Toulouse, Strasbourg, some Russian cities again). Some currently seasonal routes could be yearly and some named destinations depend on available slots in them or nearby airport i.e. they might be alternatives for more flights to a single airport.
Asia: Sapporo, Busan, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Bangalore and all remaining supermegacities of China, later Manila, Jakarta and another Japanese site. (Tokyo Haneda should be the very first, but they will not get it)
North America: first Toronto back, then Vancouver, Washington, Boston and/or Philadelphia
Africa and Latin America may only see sporadic leisure flights (though Helsinki would be as good as any to connect from Japan to Brazil)

If there is some political improvement, in Middle East: Baghdad, Tehran, any of the Stans

Everything depends, however, on how well they succeed in connecting passengers
a) from secondary cities of Europe to Asia,
b) from Russia (and nearby countries) to Americas (and possibly some west European destinations)
c) from Americas to South Asia and Middle East (so far mostly failed)
since to O&D will not grow very much, because Finns would never travel that massively abroad and Finland is not that popular tourist destination. (Although the number of Chinese tourists in Finland grows more than in the rest of Europe) .
Also most eastern destinations are subject to political negotiations - hence they would not get what they want (even less what I want).
Taipei would be interesting. It would be very hard to start Taiwan while trying to get more permissions to mainland China.

Year round - Lisbon
Summer - Faro

US:
SEA
LAX
BOS

All seem very possible

I heard about Basel being on the list earlier this year. Haven't heard anything about it since though ...

DFW

Atlanta! Need more variety in ATL. There are no Scandinavian airlines in ATL and Finnair would be great to see.

I have to travel to Karlstad, Sweden 5-6 times a year and would love some variety. I know it will not happen but would love to see them come.

Personally I would love a year round, stand alone BGO flight which is optimized for Asian connections. I man can dream though.

deltadawg wrote:

Atlanta! Need more variety in ATL. There are no Scandinavian airlines in ATL and Finnair would be great to see.

I have to travel to Karlstad, Sweden 5-6 times a year and would love some variety. I know it will not happen but would love to see them come.

One Finnish newspaper released TOP 10 list of destinations where Finnish people traveled to spend their autumn holiday in 2016. There were three US destination in the TOP 10 and Atlanta was the 3rd among the US destinations.

1. New York, USA

2. Miami, USA

3. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

4. Málaga, Spain

5. Bergen, Norway

6. Koh Samui, Thailand

7. Vienna, Austria

8. Tenerife, Spain

9. Atlanta, USA

10. Dubrovnik, Croatia

Source: http://www.is.fi/matkat/art-2000001238801.html?nomobile=4 (in Finnish)

Sendai, Calcutta?

CMX

Brazilian Northeast back again... not regularly of course, just seasonal flights...
We miss their 757s in Recife and Fortaleza. They could come back with A321. Not the same but still is something

Karachi, Pakistan. There could be a first mover advantage since no Western airlines fly into Pakistan currently (at least ones with an on board pilot, not in Nevada)

QuawerAir wrote:

One Finnish newspaper released TOP 10 list of destinations where Finnish people traveled to spend their autumn holiday in 2016. There were three US destination in the TOP 10 and Atlanta was the 3rd among the US destinations.

This isn't a non-goal for Finnair, but the travel preferences of the Finnish people are not their highest priority. Where do people from North Europe fly to? Where do people from North-East Asia fly to?

The Asians are not flying to US through Helsinki, however. So I think we're talking about Europeans and Russians flying to US, or US people coming here. Basically, anyone inside the area bounded by Moscow, Northern Finland, Norway, Denmark, Baltics, Poland, Germany is a potential customer.

I think DFW and LAX in the US.

BHX and NCL in the UK with Embraers.

Finnair first needs to become consistently profitable and improve their services.
They need to put some felt in their A350 seatbacks because it's like sitting on a bench, and provide a decent free meal on their 3+ hours connecting flights.
Then, Helsinki has to walk away from the LCC airport model, expand or remove part of the shopping gallery to allow for more space for transitting pax, and put more chairs so that people can sit by the gates.

After all that we can talk about additional destinations.

How about smaller cities in Nordic/Eastern Europe? Like KBP/BGO/MMX/MSQ/KGD/GLA, and then BFS/LIS/MRS/LYS

QuawerAir wrote:

One Finnish newspaper released TOP 10 list of destinations where Finnish people traveled to spend their autumn holiday in 2016. There were three US destination in the TOP 10 and Atlanta was the 3rd among the US destinations.

How is that possible? Why would Finnish people want to spend their holiday in Atlanta?

QuawerAir wrote:

In March 2013, Finnair announced a list of potential Asian destinations the airline is considering.

Source: https://centreforaviation.com/news/finnair-looking-to-further-expand-asian-network-in-coming-years-217219

Here is the list with updates:

Ulaanbaatar

My personal wish would be ULN (Ulaanbaatar), so I'm happy to see this on the potentials list. It would give OneWorld customers an option to ULN. New airport opens next year and maybe that would get this started.

This could mainly be a summer destination but perhaps could support some winter flights too. But ULN is such a great spring and summer destination.

I'm not sure if Finnair currently codeshare with Aeroflot on this route through Moscow.

MartijnNL wrote:

QuawerAir wrote:

One Finnish newspaper released TOP 10 list of destinations where Finnish people traveled to spend their autumn holiday in 2016. There were three US destination in the TOP 10 and Atlanta was the 3rd among the US destinations.

How is that possible? Why would Finnish people want to spend their holiday in Atlanta?

Atlanta in Top 10 sounds odd indeed, so does Bergen. The article says the list is based on Expedia bookings, still don't get it.

piedfly wrote:

My personal wish would be ULN (Ulaanbaatar), so I'm happy to see this on the potentials list. It would give OneWorld customers an option to ULN. New airport opens next year and maybe that would get this started.

This could mainly be a summer destination but perhaps could support some winter flights too. But ULN is such a great spring and summer destination.

I'm not sure if Finnair currently codeshare with Aeroflot on this route through Moscow.

No codeshare to ULN, that would be a cool destination.

leleko747 wrote:

Brazilian Northeast back again... not regularly of course, just seasonal flights...
We miss their 757s in Recife and Fortaleza. They could come back with A321. Not the same but still is something

Yes Finnair operated seasonal charter flights to NE Brazil some 10 years ago, B757 via Las Palmas. I don't know why that all vanished, it was quite a popular winter destination back then, though not the most comfortable flight. Finnair operate less and less long charters nowadays, instead they'll start scheduled A350 flights to Havana (CUB), Puerto Plata (DOM) and Puerto Vallarta (MEX) next winter. So why not returning to Brazil, that would be great.

HELyes wrote:

Yes Finnair operated seasonal charter flights to NE Brazil some 10 years ago, B757 via Las Palmas. I don't know why that all vanished, it was quite a popular winter destination back then, though not the most comfortable flight. Finnair operate less and less long charters nowadays, instead they'll start scheduled A350 flights to Havana (CUB), Puerto Plata (DOM) and Puerto Vallarta (MEX) next winter. So why not returning to Brazil, that would be great.

Thanks for the reply! That's a great picture taken by a friend of mine. Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to take pics of Finnair 757 here in Fortaleza
Back then, we also had Travel Service coming from Prague via Sal Island or Las Palmas (can't remember which one), great days.

A return to FOR and REC would be great, but the A350 would be probably too much capacity. I don't know if they have A321 Neos on order, but that would probably be enough...

HELyes wrote:

MartijnNL wrote:

QuawerAir wrote:

One Finnish newspaper released TOP 10 list of destinations where Finnish people traveled to spend their autumn holiday in 2016. There were three US destination in the TOP 10 and Atlanta was the 3rd among the US destinations.

How is that possible? Why would Finnish people want to spend their holiday in Atlanta?

Atlanta in Top 10 sounds odd indeed, so does Bergen. The article says the list is based on Expedia bookings, still don't get it.

Maybe it has something to do with connections over the massive DL hub? Like book HEL-XXX-ATL(switch tickets)-Florida/wherever else. It seems that most Finnish Americans are in UP Michigan and Minnesota, so maybe connects to MN and MI?

piedfly wrote:

My personal wish would be ULN (Ulaanbaatar), so I'm happy to see this on the potentials list. It would give OneWorld customers an option to ULN. New airport opens next year and maybe that would get this started.

This could mainly be a summer destination but perhaps could support some winter flights too. But ULN is such a great spring and summer destination.

I'm not sure if Finnair currently codeshare with Aeroflot on this route through Moscow.

No codeshare to ULN, that would be a cool destination.


Ulaanbataar would be amazing. Always though Mongolia would be an amazing place to travel to, fish, and tour.

leleko747 wrote:

[
A return to FOR and REC would be great, but the A350 would be probably too much capacity. I don't know if they have A321 Neos on order, but that would probably be enough...

No A321neos on order, though they do use A321 on HEL-LPA and thats longer leg than LPA-FOR. Anyway, I believe their customers want direct flights these days.