Finnair has today announced that it is expanding with seasonal flights for the winter 2017 season to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, Havana in Cuba, Goa in India and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.

HEL - PVR = November 19 and March 18 = 1x weekly A350
HEL - POP = November 30 and March 22 = 1x weekly A330
HEL - HAV = December 1 and March 23 = 2x weekly A350
HEL - GOA = December 1 and March 23 = 2x weekly A330

In addition, Finnair will be adding extra frequencies to popular winter holiday and business destinations in Asia.

BKK increase from 14 to 16 weekly
DEL increase from 5 to 6 weekly
SIN increase from 5 to 7 weekly
HKG increase from 7 to 10 weekly.

Press release
https://company.finnair.com/en/media/al ... id=2430741

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I find it interesting that a high cost legacy carrier puts so much effort into chasing after longhaul leisure markets using premium heavy product fleet.

LAXintl wrote:

I find it interesting that a high cost legacy carrier puts so much effort into chasing after longhaul leisure markets using premium heavy product fleet.

They really have nowhere else to put them in the winter. AY's expansion is great for the high season, but it gets trickier on what to do with the premium heavy planes in the low season (many of AY's destinations or frequencies are seasonal).

Interesting move. Who would be AY's target market for these flights? AY seem to have built a good business flying Europeans east to Asia and beyond (and, conversely, flying Asians west to various points in Europe) but I am not sure how their west-bound business model (toe beyond Europe) works. It makes no sense for a Brit to go to HEL to fly to PVR, for example, no matter how good the fare. And wouldn't Asian travellers be better heading to Mexico via the Pacific?

Do that many Finns want to go to Mexico?

vhtje wrote:

Who would be AY's target market for these flights?

They are targeting Finns and other Northern Europeans going on vacation to try and escape the freezing, dark, hell that is North Europe in the winter.

Keep in mind these are weekly to twice weekly flights. Perfect to plan your week long vacation around.

Just to clarify GOA is actually Genoa Airport, you should change it to GOI.
Those are some interesting additions, but its surprising that even though Finland is a state of barely 5 million people, AY is so big!

I wonder from where AY get the planes for these routes, as they currently got an IBERIA A 330 EC-LYF in charter for their Miami flights and before that they had an A 340 from HiFly 9H-SUN for weeks on their flights AY5/6 HEL-JFK-HEL on charter.

The new destinations appear to be leisure related. Finnair is already flying to a number of leisure destinations during winter. For example to Cuba one can upgrade to a business class for a cost of 200 € per direction per person. For a leisure flight that is a lot, but for an intercontinental flight upgrade not so bad.

AirbusOnly wrote:

I wonder from where AY get the planes for these routes, as they currently got an IBERIA A 330 EC-LYF in charter for their Miami flights and before that they had an A 340 from HiFly 9H-SUN for weeks on their flights AY5/6 HEL-JFK-HEL on charter.

That's not due to lack of planes, it is due to lack of pilots, a shortage they expect to be fixed by summer.

AirbusOnly wrote:

I wonder from where AY get the planes for these routes, as they currently got an IBERIA A 330 EC-LYF in charter for their Miami flights and before that they had an A 340 from HiFly 9H-SUN for weeks on their flights AY5/6 HEL-JFK-HEL on charter.

Through dropped seasonal routes and frequencies. For example SFO is seasonal and ends on September 28, the second daily NRT flight ends October 27, FUK is summer seasonal (not sure when it ends this year), etc. This upcoming winter AY should have more planes than this winter and A350 crew issues fully resolved.

Finnair A350-900 have 46 J class seats which is hardly "too premium" look at the British Airways 744 86J and the Lufthansa 748 to see what Premium heavy is.

jfk777 wrote:

Finnair A350-900 have 46 J class seats which is hardly "too premium" look at the British Airways 744 86J and the Lufthansa 748 to see what Premium heavy is.

When the entire plane seats under 300 people, having 46 business class seats is quite a heavy premium configuration.

Also Finland and HEL is hardly the premium market which London or Frankfurt are.

mercure1 wrote:

jfk777 wrote:

Finnair A350-900 have 46 J class seats which is hardly "too premium" look at the British Airways 744 86J and the Lufthansa 748 to see what Premium heavy is.

When the entire plane seats under 300 people, having 46 business class seats is quite a heavy premium configuration.

Finnair is introducing a low J Version on their coming A350 deliveries With 32J 42PE 262Y, total 336 seats

vhtje wrote:

Interesting move. Who would be AY's target market for these flights? AY seem to have built a good business flying Europeans east to Asia and beyond (and, conversely, flying Asians west to various points in Europe) but I am not sure how their west-bound business model (toe beyond Europe) works. It makes no sense for a Brit to go to HEL to fly to PVR, for example, no matter how good the fare. And wouldn't Asian travellers be better heading to Mexico via the Pacific?

I've seen much stranger routings with longer detours than UK-HEL-PVR......

That said, for Finland and the rest of the Nordic countries Finnair will probably offer the fastest routing here, even with the detour

I also expect they will sell quite a few seat to tour operators

mercure1 wrote:

jfk777 wrote:

Finnair A350-900 have 46 J class seats which is hardly "too premium" look at the British Airways 744 86J and the Lufthansa 748 to see what Premium heavy is.

When the entire plane seats under 300 people, having 46 business class seats is quite a heavy premium configuration.

Also Finland and HEL is hardly the premium market which London or Frankfurt are.

Finnair will soon receive A350s with 32 business class seats.

Also note that Finnair's A350 feature a "flex compartment": the business seats behind the second door can be swapped for economy seats within 24 hours inside the maintenance hangar.

Why they decided to go to POP over PUJ is beyond me... Puerto Plata is so outdated, most of the resorts are a lot older, and the beaches don't even come close to those in Punta Cana. Plus PUJ is very well known to Europeans already, with a wealth of flights each day from all over Europe, and a lot more resorts to choose from vs. POP. I am glad to see them expanding though. Flew YYZ-HEL-YYZ 2 years ago and loved the A330 product.

There were quite a few Finnish charter flights at goi last time I was there.. Would they have a technical stop or fly there non stop?

KarelXWB wrote:

Also note that Finnair's A350 feature a "flex compartment": the business seats behind the second door can be swapped for economy seats within 24 hours inside the maintenance hangar.

For that you would need to have those extra Y seats lying somewhere at that hangar. I don't think Finnair has those. So it sounds a bit like swapping engines on a 787 within 24 hours..

vrbarreto wrote:

There were quite a few Finnish charter flights at goi last time I was there.. Would they have a technical stop or fly there non stop?

The A320/321 stop at Dubai on the way.

Strato2 wrote:

KarelXWB wrote:

Also note that Finnair's A350 feature a "flex compartment": the business seats behind the second door can be swapped for economy seats within 24 hours inside the maintenance hangar.

For that you would need to have those extra Y seats lying somewhere at that hangar. I don't think Finnair has those. So it sounds a bit like swapping engines on a 787 within 24 hours..

Well Finnair designed their A350 cabin with a flew compartment in mind.

It's not a unique feature though, other carriers too adjust business class demand during the year.

vhtje wrote:

Interesting move. Who would be AY's target market for these flights? AY seem to have built a good business flying Europeans east to Asia and beyond (and, conversely, flying Asians west to various points in Europe) but I am not sure how their west-bound business model (toe beyond Europe) works. It makes no sense for a Brit to go to HEL to fly to PVR, for example, no matter how good the fare. And wouldn't Asian travellers be better heading to Mexico via the Pacific?

Do that many Finns want to go to Mexico?

About 13,000 Finns visit Mexico in a year, about 61% of them between Dec and March.
http://201.159.142.19/Cognos/cgi-bin/co ... i.backURL=

Goa, Cuba and Dominican Republic seem usual stuff, but Puerto Vallarta is quite surprising. I thought PVR was mostly about American/Canadian tourists.

vrbarreto wrote:

I find it interesting that a high cost legacy carrier puts so much effort into chasing after longhaul leisure markets using premium heavy product fleet.

Actually these are not new destinations (except PVR), but the former leisure/charter services have been converted to scheduled flights. Leisure markets have always been a large part of Finnair's business model, they even have their own tour operator in Finland. Most of their numerous former charter/leisure services are scheduled now, both short hauls and long hauls. The main target still are Finnish holidaymakers but now they are eyeing on new markets too. A couple of years back they did the same in east where Phuket, Krabi, Saigon and Dubai routes got a new status.

Only Puerto Vallarta sounds new, they have had leisure service to Cancun though. It looks Havana and Goa are getting a lot more capacity comparing to the leisure services this year, Goa will be upgraded from A321ER to A330. Havana and Puerto Vallarta get A350, nice... Not that long ago their cramped B757 served Caribbean, with a tech stop in Halifax or similar.

Adding flights to BKK to 16x weekly in winter sounds surprising, with Phuket and Krabi that means 21 scheduled flights per week. It seems Thailand is not out.

Has AY ever flown to LAX? Granted, I know it's easy for them to just put people on AA's flights from JFK/ORD/MIA... but wonder how conceivably it would be to see them here, since they're in something of an expansion mode?

Somewhat disappointing that all these new leisure destinations get the A350 while JFK/MIA are still on the 330s. Any word on if this changes in the fall as well?

LAX772LR wrote:

Has AY ever flown to LAX? Granted, I know it's easy for them to just put people on AA's flights from JFK/ORD/MIA... but wonder how conceivably it would be to see them here, since they're in something of an expansion mode?

Yes sure have. On two occasions - once via SEA, other nonstop during DC-10 days.

petteri wrote:

Somewhat disappointing that all these new leisure destinations get the A350 while JFK/MIA are still on the 330s. Any word on if this changes in the fall as well?

True, disappointing JFK/MIA still get A333, atleast in the beginning of the winter according to the timetables. No changes announced yet.

Helsinki-Puerto Vallarta will be Finnair's longest route 5386nm, passing SIN 5006nm, probably this is the main reason to use A350. The scheduled flight time HEL-PVR is 12:30h, to eastbound it's an hour less.

Wow! Awesome news! Congrats to AY and the new destinations!

Does PVR have other nonstops to Europe?

How would the 1x weekly schedule work with the crew? Will they have a week-long layover or do they deadhead back home to Helsinki ?

Very good. There should be more direct flights from India.

why they do not include Bali as an option ?

KarelXWB wrote:

Strato2 wrote:

KarelXWB wrote:

Also note that Finnair's A350 feature a "flex compartment": the business seats behind the second door can be swapped for economy seats within 24 hours inside the maintenance hangar.

For that you would need to have those extra Y seats lying somewhere at that hangar. I don't think Finnair has those. So it sounds a bit like swapping engines on a 787 within 24 hours..

Well Finnair designed their A350 cabin with a flew compartment in mind.

It's not a unique feature though, other carriers too adjust business class demand during the year.

That's not a flexible space, that's a separate part of the business cabin in which you can put your high-tier frequent flyer members who paid for economy but who you're upgrading to business because it's that or fly with a lot of empty seats!

Strato2 wrote:

vrbarreto wrote:

There were quite a few Finnish charter flights at goi last time I was there.. Would they have a technical stop or fly there non stop?

The A320/321 stop at Dubai on the way.

First time I saw AY at GOI was a bit of a surprise for me, seeing a Finnair A321 halfway across the globe from FInland is quite interesting.

AA300B wrote:

How would the 1x weekly schedule work with the crew? Will they have a week-long layover or do they deadhead back home to Helsinki ?

My guess would be 24-36 hours in PVR then a deadhead to either SAN, ORD, EWR or JFK and 24-36 hours, then operate a live flight from SAN/ORD/JFK-HEL. At least that would seem the most cost effective use of the crew. My guess would be on SAN, Finnair starts flights June 1st 2017 so that would seem the best option. Plus probably more than daily flights from PVR to SAN between Alaska & Virgin America. That's where my bet is...

BigGSFO wrote:

Does PVR have other nonstops to Europe?

Thomson fly from LGW and MAN, probably some other tour operators too but Finnair seems to be the only European legacy carrier offering scheduled service.

Ryan78, you mean SFO? Both SFO and PVR are seasonal services, SFO in summer, PVR in winter.

ryan78 wrote:

AA300B wrote:

How would the 1x weekly schedule work with the crew? Will they have a week-long layover or do they deadhead back home to Helsinki ?

My guess would be 24-36 hours in PVR then a deadhead to either SAN, ORD, EWR or JFK and 24-36 hours, then operate a live flight from SAN/ORD/JFK-HEL. At least that would seem the most cost effective use of the crew. My guess would be on SAN, Finnair starts flights June 1st 2017 so that would seem the best option. Plus probably more than daily flights from PVR to SAN between Alaska & Virgin America. That's where my bet is...

Personally my money is on a layover in PVR, then dead heading to Cuba or the Dominican Republic and fly one of those home. They are also operated only 1-2 times a week. Looking at the destinations served from PVR it seems they're pretty light on the Caribbean services but they can probably connect through MEX etc.

Timetables:

eff 19NOV17 Helsinki – Puerto Vallarta 1 weekly until 18MAR18 with A350
AY025 HEL1410 – 1840PVR 359 7
AY026 PVR2030 – 1600+1HEL 359 7

eff 29NOV17 Helsinki – Goa 2 weekly until 21MAR18 with A330
AY123 HEL2030 – 0810+1GOI 333 37
AY124 GOI0955 – 1515HEL 333 14

eff 30NOV17 Helsinki – Puerto Plata 1 weekly until 23MAR18 with A330
AY021 HEL1950 – 0105+1POP 333 4
AY022 POP0250 – 1840HEL 333 5

eff 01DEC17 Helsinki – Havana 2 weekly until 23MAR18 with A350
AY027 HEL1700 – 2115HAV 359 15
AY028 HAV2305 – 1555+1HEL 359 15

lucce wrote:

Personally my money is on a layover in PVR, then dead heading to Cuba or the Dominican Republic and fly one of those home. They are also operated only 1-2 times a week. Looking at the destinations served from PVR it seems they're pretty light on the Caribbean services but they can probably connect through MEX etc.

From PVR to POP the only reliable 1 stop connections would be from from YYZ,YUL, EWR & JFK (Which defeats the purpose with AY's JFK-HEL flights). HAV would be a little easier with 1 stop from MEX as you mentioned. Being around crew scheduling department at my old job, deadhead's were kept to direct flights whenever possible and only took connecting flights if it was absolutely necessary. The 2H40M flight to SAN seems to make the most sense but alas we will never know unless someone from Finnair crew scheduling can answer our question...

ryan78 wrote:

lucce wrote:

The 2H40M flight to SAN seems to make the most sense but alas we will never know unless someone from Finnair crew scheduling can answer our question...

Sorry a bit lost here, what would the routing be from SAN?

Ooops, my apologies, I meant SFO not SAN (SAN is San Diego not San Francisco). AA300B asked about the x1 weekly flight and the crew laying over for 1 week in PVR. I said the most likely thing to do is deadhead them from PVR to SFO on either Alaska, United or Virgin America and have them operate the SFO-HEL flight home. I believe AY is starting 3 weekly HEL-SFO starting June 1st. I would edit my previous posts to prevent confusion but it appears I can't...

ryan78 wrote:

Ooops, my apologies, I meant SFO not SAN (SAN is San Diego not San Francisco). AA300B asked about the x1 weekly flight and the crew laying over for 1 week in PVR. I said the most likely thing to do is deadhead them from PVR to SFO on either Alaska, United or Virgin America and have them operate the SFO-HEL flight home. I believe AY is starting 3 weekly HEL-SFO starting June 1st. I would edit my previous posts to prevent confusion but it appears I can't...

SFO is a seasonal service so not useful for PVR crews in winter. Finnair has operated once weekly charters to Cuba and Dominican Republic for years, I'm curious how that has worked with crews so far.

AA300B wrote:

How would the 1x weekly schedule work with the crew? Will they have a week-long layover or do they deadhead back home to Helsinki ?

I was just told it depends on the destination. In Cuba crews have a week-long layover, Puerto Vallarta will probably be the same. Saigon is a similar ex-charter route, once a week service, there crews move through BKK.

DeltaB717 wrote:

KarelXWB wrote:

Strato2 wrote:

For that you would need to have those extra Y seats lying somewhere at that hangar. I don't think Finnair has those. So it sounds a bit like swapping engines on a 787 within 24 hours..

Well Finnair designed their A350 cabin with a flew compartment in mind.

It's not a unique feature though, other carriers too adjust business class demand during the year.

That's not a flexible space, that's a separate part of the business cabin in which you can put your high-tier frequent flyer members who paid for economy but who you're upgrading to business because it's that or fly with a lot of empty seats!

If you read the thread you will see that it is a flex cabin. It can be removed and replaced with Economy seats in 24hrs. Not quick enough to do daily but easy to do at the start and end of a season.

vhtje wrote:

Interesting move. Who would be AY's target market for these flights? AY seem to have built a good business flying Europeans east to Asia and beyond (and, conversely, flying Asians west to various points in Europe) but I am not sure how their west-bound business model (toe beyond Europe) works. It makes no sense for a Brit to go to HEL to fly to PVR, for example, no matter how good the fare. And wouldn't Asian travellers be better heading to Mexico via the Pacific?

Do that many Finns want to go to Mexico?

To escape the winter, they want to go anywhere warm! I bet they have hotels/travel agent/local incentives something pushed these destinations specifically. They will get help filling them, and like we said for vacationers seeking warmth, once a week even is just fine. Best way to get more use out of the planes, send them somewhere warm in winter. time will tell which work, but low risk.

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

To escape the winter, they want to go anywhere warm! I bet they have hotels/travel agent/local incentives something pushed these destinations specifically. They will get help filling them, and like we said for vacationers seeking warmth, once a week even is just fine. Best way to get more use out of the planes, send them somewhere warm in winter. time will tell which work, but low risk.

Except Puerto Vallarta, these are old charter destinations, they are just converted to scheduled services now. Finnair has been a notable charter operator but they have revised their business model in recent years, to get new customers from northern Europe especially. They have done this already in Mediterranean, Canary Islands, Phuket, Krabi and such. The majority of the seats on these flights are still sold by Finnish tour operators.Yes Finns like other Nordics need their sun therapy!

As for client base to Puerto Vallarta, it is one of the great gay resorts in the world. As the only operator from Europe AY has a great potential clientele.

artof wrote:

As for client base to Puerto Vallarta, it is one of the great gay resorts in the world. As the only operator from Europe AY has a great potential clientele.

Didn't know that of Puerto Vallarta, Finnair probably did know. There are direct charters (Thomson 787) from UK, don't know of any others. Finnair will be the only legacy carrier, the majority of the seats will be sold trough tour operators though. It's a 12h flight so the new A350 is a big plus, must attract premium passengers.