Finnair cabin crew after the airspace closure: the southern routing to Asia, the longer duties
-
#1 Finnair, Helsinki, four years, the Asia routes via the southern routing, and Oskar wrote the Finnair interview and replied in the Ukraine thread about the airspace. The airspace closure changed the Finnair crew's job more than any other European airline's and the change deserves its own thread. Here it is.
What Finnair was
The shortest Europe to Asia airline: Helsinki as the northern hub, the great circle over Russia to Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore in eight to nine hours, the Finnair strategy built on the geography for twenty years. The crew's Asia routes were the short long haul: a nine hour Tokyo with a 24 to 48 hour layover, a body clock that was manageable, a roster that was the envy of the Lufthansa and Air France Asia crews.
What the closure did
The Russian airspace closed to Finnair in 2022 and the Asia flights lengthened by three to four hours each way on the southern routing over the Caucasus and Central Asia or the northern routing over the pole. The Tokyo became thirteen hours, the Seoul twelve, the Shanghai and Beijing were cut or reduced, the Hong Kong and Bangkok and Singapore lengthened. The crew complement went up (augmented crews for the new durations), the rest rules absorbed the duties, and the Finnair strategy had to be rebuilt in a year.
The longer duties from the crew side
The thirteen hour Tokyo with the rest rotation that did not exist on the nine hour one, the body clock that went from manageable to the James and Jim threads' scale, the layovers that stayed the same length with a longer flight on each end, and the per diems that rose with the hours. The Finnair Asia crew went from the kindest long haul in Europe to a standard one in a year and the senior crew felt it in the body.
The Helsinki base that changed its strategy
Finnair added the Middle East (the Doha flying in partnership with Qatar, which put Finnair crew in Doha on a pattern), the India routes, the US (Dallas, Seattle, Los Angeles) as the Asia replacement for the aircraft, and the European network held. The crew rosters changed shape: more US, some Doha, less Asia, the Asia that remained longer. The Finnair crew who joined for the short Asia had a different airline by year two.
What the Finnair crew do now
Fly the longer Asia with the rest rotation and the body budget, fly the US and the Doha that did not exist, learn the Dallas and Los Angeles layovers that the Helsinki crews had never done, and keep the Nordic winter and the Nordic light cycle that Annika described as the constant. The crew who stayed through the change describe it as the crisis thread's calm: the airline changed in a month and the crew changed with it.
For the Finnair applicants
The airline the threads from before 2022 described does not exist. The current Finnair is the longer Asia, the new US, the Doha pattern, the Nordic contract and the Helsinki winter. The Asia is still the identity and it is thirteen hours now. Apply knowing it.
-
#2 Finnair, and Ole has written the thread I alluded to in two replies: the airline that changed in a month. The thirteen hour Tokyo against the nine hour one is the crew's whole change and the body knows it. The Doha pattern is the strangest addition and the Finnair crew in Doha is a sentence I did not expect to write.
-
#3 Prague, and the Ukraine thread's airspace paragraph was the Finnair story told from the Czech side and Ole has told it from Helsinki. The rerouting changed Finnair more than any airline and the crew absorbed it. The crisis calm.
-
#4 Qatar, and the Finnair crews in Doha on the partnership pattern are a sight at the Doha hotel: the Nordic crew in the Gulf heat with the specific look of people whose airline changed. They are good crew and the Doha crews have adopted them.
-
#5 Japanese, and the Finnair Tokyo at thirteen hours is the thing the Japanese crews on the Helsinki route (the ones from Tokyo who went to Finnair) describe as the change that made the Tokyo commute a long haul. The short Asia was the Finnair promise and it is gone. The airline stayed.
-
#6 SAS Stockholm, and the SAS Asia routes had the same rerouting at a smaller scale and the Copenhagen crews felt it. Finnair had the most to lose and lost it and rebuilt. The Nordic carriers watched Helsinki and learned. Ole's thread is the record.
-
#7 Qantas, and the Finnair crew going from the kindest long haul in Europe to the standard one in a year is a body budget change at the whole airline scale, which the ultra long haul crews on this forum understand: the budget was reset by a map. The crew who stayed are the calm ones.