Finnair announces temporary layoffs following Coronavirus situation

To minimise the negative financial impacts of the current coronavirus situation, Finnair is now adjusting its traffic programme and resourcing to the declined demand, said Finnair in a press release.

Earlier, on February 28, Finnair commented on the impacts of the coronavirus situation on its financial outlook.

Finnair has cancelled all its flights to Mainland China (Guangzhou,Nanjing, Beijing Capital, Beijing Daxing, Shanghai, and Xi´an) until April 30.

In April, Finnair will fly to Hong Kong with one daily frequency instead of the normal two daily frequencies.

Finnair is cancelling two weekly flights on its Osaka route as well, and will fly to Osaka during the summer season (March 29 – October 24) with 10 weekly frequencies instead of the 12 weekly frequencies scheduled earlier.

Finnair is also cancelling its daily flights to Seoul from March 9 to April 16. It has also deferred the opening of its new route to Busan from March 31 to July 1.

Following an updated travel advisory from the Finnish Foreign Ministry concerning Milan, Finnair has also cancelled its flights between Helsinki and Milan from March 9 to April 7.

Finnair will continue to follow the impacts of the coronavirus situation in demand for flights and will communicate further changes to its flights in due course. Finnair communicates flight cancellations directly to customers who have bookings on these flights. Customers can then either seek for a full ticket refund or postpone their travel by contacting Finnair customer service. In addition, Finnair is offering customers who have bookings for any Finnair flights in March, the possibility to change their travel date to the same destination until the end of June 2020, if they so wish.

Finnair will adjust its resourcing to the situation and will start negotiations on planned temporary layoffs affecting the entire Finnair personnel based in Finland. According to the current estimate, the possible layoffs would be implemented so that all employees within the co-operations process would be temporarily laid off for a 14- to 30-day period.

The negotiations start on March 12 and are expected to last for two weeks. Similar personnel measures will also be taken in countries outside Finland. As announced on February 28, Finnair is also adjusting its other costs globally, such as sales and marketing activities and other external spending.