Finnair

Founding

In 1923, consul Bruno Lucander founded Finnair as Aero O/Y (Aero Ltd). The company code, "AY", originates from this; AY stands for Aero Yhtiö ("yhtiö" means "company" in Finnish). Lucander had previously run the Finnish operations of the Estonian airline Aeronaut. In mid-1923 he concluded an agreement with Junkers Flugzeugwerke AG to provide aircraft and technical support in exchange for a 50% ownership in the new airline. The charter establishing the company was signed in Helsinki on 12 September 1923, and the company was entered into the trade register on 11 December 1923. The first flight was on 20 March 1924 from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia on a Junkers F.13 aircraft equipped with floats. The seaplane service ended in December 1936 following the construction of the first aerodromes in Finland.

World War II

Air raids on Helsinki and other Finnish cities made World War II a difficult period for the airline. Half the fleet was requisitioned by the Finnish Air Force and it is estimated that, during the Winter War of 1939 and 1940, half of the airline's other Finnish cities main passengers were children being evacuated to Sweden.

Immediate postwar period

The Finnish government wanted longer routes so it acquired a majority stake in the company in 1946 and re-established services to Europe in November 1947, initially using the Douglas DC-3. In 1953, the airline began branding itself as Finnair. The Convair 440 twin-engined pressurised airliner was acquired from January 1953 and these faster aircraft were operated on the company's longer routes as far as London.

Jet Age (1970s)

In 1961, Finnair joined the jet age by adding Rolls-Royce Avon-engined Caravelles to its fleet. These were later exchanged with the manufacturer for Pratt & Whitney JT8D-engined Super Caravelles. In 1962, Finnair acquired a 27% controlling interest in a private Finnish airline, Kar-Air. Finnair Oy became the company's official name on 25 June 1968. In 1969, it took possession of its first U.S. made jet, a Douglas DC-8. The first transatlantic service to New York was inaugurated on 15 May 1969. In the 1960s Finnair's head office was in Helsinki.

Finnair received its first widebody aircraft in 1975, two DC-10-30 planes. The first of these arrived on 4 February 1975 and entered service on 14 February 1975, flying between Helsinki and Las Palmas.

In 1979, Finnair established a subsidiary company Finnaviation for domestic operations, with a 60% stake.

Expansion (1980s)

In 1983, Finnair became the first operator to fly non-stop from Western Europe to Japan operating Helsinki-Tokyo flights with one McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30ER. Until then, flights had to go via Moscow (Aeroflot, SAS, BA) or Anchorage (most carriers) due to Soviet airspace restrictions, but Finnair circumvented these by flying directly north from Helsinki, over the North Pole and back south through the Bering Strait, avoiding the Soviet airspace. The aircraft was fitted with extra fuel tanks, taking 13 hours for the trip. The routes through Soviet airspace and with a stopover in Moscow also took 13 hours, but flights with a stopover at Anchorage took up to 16 hours, giving Finnair a competitive edge. In the spring of 1986, Soviet regulators finally cleared the way for Air France and Japan Airlines to fly nonstop Paris-Tokyo services over Soviet airspace, putting Finnair at a disadvantage.

Finnair launched a Helsinki-Beijing route in 1988, making Finnair the first Western European carrier to fly non-stop between Europe and China. In 1989, Finnair became the launch customer for the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, the first of which was delivered on 7 December 1990. The first revenue service with the MD-11 took place on 20 December 1990, with OH-LGA operating a flight from Helsinki to Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

Subsidiary airlines (1990s–2000s)

In 1997, the subsidiaries Kar-Air and Finnaviation became wholly owned by Finnair, and were integrated into the mainline operations. On 25 September 1997, the company's official name was changed to Finnair Oyj.

In 1999, Finnair joined the Oneworld airline alliance. In 2001, Finnair reused the name "Aero" when establishing Aero Airlines, a subsidiary airline based in Tallinn, Estonia.

In 2003, Finnair acquired ownership of the Swedish low-cost airline, FlyNordic, which operated mainly within Scandinavia. In 2007, Finnair sold all its shares in FlyNordic to Norwegian Air Shuttle. As part of the transaction, Finnair acquired 4.8% of the latter company, becoming its third largest shareholder. Finnair later sold their shares in 2013.

On 8 March 2007, Finnair became the first airline to order the Airbus A350 XWB aircraft, placing an order for 11 Airbus A350 XWB (plus 8 options), with delivery to start in 2015.

Labour disputes and restructuring (2006–present)

Finnair has suffered from many labour disputes in this period, resulting from cost-cutting measures prompted by competition from budget airlines.

On 1 December 2011, Finnair transferred its baggage and apron services to Swissport International as per a five-year agreement signed on 7 November 2011.

Head office

In 2013, Finnair opened its new head office, known as House of Travel and Transportation (or "HOTT"), on what used to be a car park right next to its previous head office located in Tietotie 11, on the grounds of Helsinki Airport. The construction of HOTT began in July 2011 and finished on time in June 2013. The previous head office had been in use since 1994, then replacing a head office located in Helsinki city centre.

The new mixed-use head office has a total floor space of 70,000 square metres (750,000 sq ft) and 22,400 square metres (241,000 sq ft) of office space.

Ownership

The State of Finland is the controlling shareholder (55.8%). Finnair's stock is listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. As of early 2012, the Finnish government was considering decreasing its share of Finnair ownership below 50%.

Finnair Cargo

Two subsidiary companies, Finnair Cargo Oy and Finnair Cargo Terminal Operations Oy, form Finnair's cargo business. The offices of both companies are at Helsinki Airport. Finnair Cargo uses currently Finnair's fleet on its cargo operations.

Finnair Cargo has three hubs:

Nordic Regional Airlines

Nordic Regional Airlines is a subsidiary airline of Finnair. The airlines uses ATR 72-500 that are leased from Finnair and Embraer E190 aircraft. All Embraer aircraft are painted in Finnair-livery. The airline began operations on 20 October 2011 as a joint venture between Flybe and Finnair. The airline has operated under Finnair's flight code since 1 May 2015.

Business trends

The key trends for Finnair over recent years are shown below (as at year ending 31 December):

Italic text

Livery

The company revealed a new livery in December 2010. Major changes include a restyled and larger lettering on the body, repainting of the engines in white, and a reversal of the color scheme for the tail fin favoring a white background with a blue stylized logo. The outline of the globe was also removed from the tail fin.

Flight attendant uniforms

Finnair's previous cabin crew uniform was named the fifth most stylish uniform by the French magazine Bon Voyage. The current uniform was designed by Ritva-Liisa Pohjalainen and launched in December 2011. Finnair has codes to indicate the rank of crew members: one stripe in the sleeve for normal cabin attendant, two stripes for senior cabin crew (only for outsourced crew) acting as a purser in Hong Kong, Singapore and Spain flights, and three stripes for a purser/chief purser. Additionally, female pursers have a white vertical stripe on their dresses or blouses. Finnair requires its cabin crew to wear gloves during take off and landing for safety reasons.

Destinations

From its Helsinki hub Finnair flies to over 110 destinations in 37 countries around the world in Asia, Europe and North America. The domestic and intra-European flights are partly carried out in cooperation with Nordic Regional Airlines, operating an ATR/Embraer fleet.

On 25 September 2015, Finnair announced that the airline would make Miami route a year-round and add more frequencies to Chicago due to increase of demand. While Finnair made Miami a year-round route, the airline discontinued its Toronto service. Now Finnair has three scheduled routes to North-America: Miami with three weekly frequencies and New York with daily service and Chicago summer seasonal route with five weekly frequencies. As of 1 June 2017, there will be four destinations in the United States as Finnair launches service to San Francisco.

In summer season of 2016, Finnair introduced 4 new scheduled routes in Europe, while 8 charter/leisure routes converted to scheduled service. Those routes are from Helsinki to Billund, Edinburgh, Mytilene, Preveza, Pula, Rimini, Santorini, Skiathos, Varna, Verona and Zakinthos. On May 2016, Finnair also introduced new seasonal routes to Fukuoka in Japan and Guangzhou in China.

In late 2016, Finnair announced several new destinations including Alicante, Astana, Corfu, Ibiza, Menorca and Reykjavík (Keflavík) that will be launched in the summer season of 2017. Finnair also converted some charter/leisure destinations including Puerto Plata and Varadero to scheduled service.

Codeshare agreements

Finnair codeshares with the following airlines:

Current fleet

The fleet of Finnair consists of narrow-bodied and wide-bodied aircraft, including the Airbus A319, Airbus A320, Airbus A321, Airbus A330 and Airbus A350. ATR-72 and Embraer E-190 aircraft are operated by Nordic Regional Airlines. The airline utilizes Airbus A319, A320 and A321 aircraft on domestic and European flights. Airbus A321-231 is also used on long-haul flights from Helsinki to Dubai. Finnair uses its wide-body aircraft on intercontinental flights. Finnair utilizes Airbus A330 on flights from Helsinki to Bangkok, Chicago, Chongqing, Delhi, Fukuoka, Guangzhou, Miami, Nagoya, New York, Osaka, Puerto Plata, Seoul, Tokyo, Varadero and Xi'an. In the beginning of 2018, Finnair will be using A330s also on its flights from Helsinki to San Francisco and Goa.

As of 22 July 2016, the Finnair fleet consists of the following aircraft:

Fleet notes:

Airbus A350

On 8 March 2007, Finnair firmed up its orders for 11 Airbus A350-900 aircraft with 8 options. On 3 December 2014, it was announced that Finnair had firmed up the contract for 8 additional Airbus A350-900 aircraft deliveries starting in 2018. On 13 August 2014, Finnair announced plans to initially deploy its A350-900 aircraft on services to Bangkok, Beijing and Shanghai from 2015, with A350 services to Hong Kong and Singapore to be added in 2016. Currently Finnair operates the Airbus A350 to Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore. Finnair also operated A350 aircraft on several flights to New York in January 2016 and became the first European airline to operate the A350 to the United States. Finnair uses the A350 on some scheduled flights from Helsinki to Brussels and London to carry extra freight as well. Osaka (Kansai) and Tokyo (Narita) will be added to Finnair's A350 network in summer 2017 and Havana as well as Puerto Vallarta in the end of 2017.

Finnair took delivery of its first A350-900 XWB aircraft on 7 October 2015, becoming the third airline to operate the aircraft, after Qatar Airways and Vietnam Airlines. According to the currently anticipated delivery schedule, it will have five A350 XWB aircraft at the beginning of the second quarter of 2016, seven by the end of 2016, 11 by the end of 2017, and 19 by the end of 2023.

Fleet gallery

Future fleet plans

Finnair has planned to retire older Airbus A340 aircraft by the end of 2017 and replace them with Airbus A350 aircraft. The airline had also planned to retire two Airbus A330 aircraft, but Finnair later canceled the plan, and shall retire those aircraft in the 2020s at the earliest. Some of the new A350 aircraft will increase the number of aircraft operated by Finnair. As of 1 February 2017, all Airbus A340 aircraft are exited from the fleet. The very last A340 (OH-LQE) operated its last flight from Tokyo to Helsinki on 1 February 2017.

On 18 December 2015, Finnair decided to improve the space efficiency of its current Airbus narrow-body fleet due to a growing need for feeder traffic capacity. The value of the investment is approximately EUR 40 million, and it includes 22 narrow-body Airbus aircraft in Finnair’s fleet. The cabin layout change excludes five A321ER aircraft, which are already configured according to the plan, having 209 seats. The cabin reconfiguration is estimated to take two weeks per aircraft during 2017. The reconfiguration adds 6 to 13 seats depending on the aircraft type, increasing the passenger capacity of Finnair’s Airbus narrow-body fleet as measured by available seat kilometers by close to 4 percent. Finnair also has planned to increase the number of its narrow-body fleet. As a first step, Finnair will lease eight Airbus A321 narrow-body aircraft.

In March 2016, Finnair announced to lease two Airbus A321 aircraft from Air Berlin for Finnair's European operations. These two aircraft were delivered in late April 2016 to Finnair. The airline has used these A321s on flights from Helsinki to Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Düsseldorf, Ljubljana, Paris, Split, Vienna and Zürich.

On 15 December 2016, Finnair announced to lease two Airbus A321s from CDB Aviation Lease Finance. The first aircraft is scheduled for delivery to Finnair for the winter season 2017/2018 and the second for the summer season 2018. Seven of the ordered aircraft will be delivered in 2017.

In the beginning of 2017, Finnair revealed its plans to add more seats to Airbus A350 aircraft. According to routesonline.com Finnair's new A350 aircraft will have 32 seats in Business Class, 304 seats in Economy Class (including Economy Comfort) and total of 336 seats. This new seat configuration will be used on airline's routes from Helsinki to Bangkok, Beijing and Seoul.

Special Liveries

Finnair's current special liveries are Marimekko "Unikko", Marimekko-50th Anniversary "Unikko" and Oneworld-liveries. Finnair has also used special liveries, including the "Moomins", "Santa Claus", 1950s retro livery and Angry Birds.

Historical fleet

Finnair has previously operated the following equipment:

Finnair Plus

Finnair Plus is Finnair's frequent-flyer programme. Passengers are awarded points based on the type and class of flight flown. Once enough miles are banked into the passenger's account, a membership tier (Basic, Silver, Gold or Platinum) is awarded. There is a Junior tier exclusively for minors. Silver, Gold, and Platinum members have privileges such as premium check-in desks and priority boarding.

Finnair offers frequent-flyer partnerships with Nordic Regional Airlines (only for the 2000 flight number series, not for domestic flights) in addition to those in the Oneworld alliance:

In addition to earning points on flights with Finnair and its partner airlines, Finnair Plus members can earn points through various hotel and car rental partners in Finland and around the world along with other service partners.

Finnair lounges

Finnair operates three own lounges at Helsinki Airport. One is accessible in the Schengen Area by travelers in Finnair's Business Class, Gold and Platinum of the Finnair Plus program members as well as Oneworld Sapphire and Emerald members. The two other are located in the non-Schengen area and the Finnair Business Lounge has the same access criteria as the one in the Schengen area except Japan Airlines Business Class passengers also have access. Finnair also operates a Premium Lounge next to the Business lounge in the non-Schengen area that Gold and Platinum of the Finnair Plus program members have access to as well as Oneworld Emerald members have access to. The non-Schengen lounges have a Finnish sauna. The remaining international destinations are served with contract lounges.

Economy Comfort

Economy Comfort is Finnair's new premium economy product debuting on long haul aircraft December 2014. It will not be a separate class but more of an upgraded economy product, much like Delta's Economy Comfort class. Economy Comfort seats will be located in the first 5 rows of economy providing 34-36" of pitch (3-5" more pitch than standard economy seats) and a comfier headrest, plus noise canceling headphones and a comfort kit. Seats will be free to Finnair Plus and oneworld elites and passengers with a full fare coach ticket, and available to all other customers for a fee.

Meals and drinks

On most European flights, a cold salad or sandwich is served, together with non-alcoholic beverages. Alcoholic beverages and additional food items are available for purchase. Domestic flights as well as shorter European flights have snacks for sale and free non-alcoholic beverages. Business class offers warm meals and free beverages, including alcohol. On most Intercontinental flights there is a choice of meals in economy class. In inter-continental business class on most Airbus aircraft (excluding those with fully lie-flat seats), there is a dedicated snack bar. As of November 2014 the complementary salad or sandwich is discontinued and beverages have been limited to coffee, tea, water, milk and blueberry juice on European flights.

In-flight entertainment

All Finnair aircraft have LCD video monitors or personal entertainment systems except the Embraer 170s and 190s and the Airbus A321-231 (Sharklet). Airbus A320 series aircraft have monitors showing exterior shots, moving-map systems and mute television programs. Airbus A330, Airbus A340 and Airbus A350 aircraft have an AVOD personal entertainment system on all seats with about 72 movies, 150 TV shows, 200 music albums, 24 radio channels and 15 games.

In-flight magazine

Finnair's English-language in-flight magazine, Blue Wings, is published 10 times a year by the Finnish media group Sanoma. The first edition of Blue Wings magazine was published in 1980. There are domestic and international newspapers on all flights and magazines on long-haul flights in business class.

Incidents and accidents