More than 500 Finnair flights have been cancelled and several airports across Finland have been closed following the commencement of a 48-hour political strike on Thursday (1 February).
Following warnings of major travel disruption, the Finnish national carrier confirmed some 550 flights have been cancelled between 1 February and 2 February due to widespread strikes against the government’s planned labour market reforms.
Finnair has approximately 280 scheduled flights per day in its normal traffic programme, so the vast majority of flights will be cancelled. The carrier said it will aim to operate “a handful of flights” during the strike and will communicate directly with passengers who are expected to fly.
Airport ground handling services have also been affected, with airport operator Finavia enforcing capacity restrictions on commercial passenger and cargo air traffic at Helsinki Airport during the strike.
Travellers on long-haul flights with onward connections from Helsinki Airport on February 1–2 will be routed directly to their destinations, as there are no connections from Helsinki during the strike, according to Finnair.
"We have already given customers the opportunity to change their travel dates on Finnair flights. From January 30 onwards we started rerouting customers, using also other airlines’ flights,” said Jari Paajanen, vice president, Finnair Operations Control Center.
Due to the large number of cancelled flights, the carrier warned processing times for cancellations and the rerouting of customers takes approximately two days.
“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,” Paajanen added.
During the strike, capacity restrictions have also been enforced at a further 10 airports, including Ivalo, Jyväskylä, Kittilä, Kuopio, Kuusamo, Oulu, Rovaniemi, Tampere-Pirkkala, Turku and Vaasa.
Meanwhile, Finavia confirmed that six airports – Joensuu, Kajaani, Kemi-Tornio, Kokkola-Pietarsaari, Pori and Savonlinna – have been closed as a result of the political strike.