Finnish Flag Carrier Expands European Network Amid Recovery from Pandemic and War in Ukraine

Finnair unveiled seven new European destinations during its Capital Markets Update on November 13, 2025. Starting from the summer season of 2026, the Finnish flag carrier will connect its Helsinki hub to Kuressaare (Estonia), Luxembourg (LUX), Stavanger (SVG), Norway, Thessaloniki /SKG), Greece, Tirana (TIA), Albania, Turin (TRN), and Umeå (UME), in northern Sweden. These new routes are additional to the five destinations previously announced by the airline earlier in 2025: Alta (ALF), Norway, Catania (CTA) and Florence (FLR) in Italy, the Greek island of Kos (KGS) and Valencia (VLC), Spain. In addition to its hub-and-spoke operation at Helsinki Airport, Finnair is also launching three nonstop routes connecting the city of Kittilä (KTT), in Lapland, northern Finland, to three European destinations, Brussels (BRU), Paris (CDG) and Zurich (ZRH) in the winter of 2026. According to AeroTime, Finnair highlighted that it has managed to consolidate its recovery from the consecutive shocks that were the pandemic and the war in Ukraine and the subsequent closure of Russian airspace. The latter has had the long-lasting effect of negating one of Finnair’s core competitive advantages: fast access to its core revenue-generating markets in Asia. In this regard, Finnair has managed to rebalance its revenue mix, with Asia representing just 36% of its revenue, down from 49% in 2019. The Finnish carrier has set a goal of achieving a 6-8% EBIT margin by 2029. To reach this goal, Finnair aims to generate €100 million in additional profit, mostly by stimulating its retail and ancillary offering in cooperation with partners. The airline’s loyalty program is also expected to play a major role in these plans. Loyalty-related non-travel revenue is expected to triple by 2029.