A Chinese airline will start flights from Beijing to Helsinki-Vantaa

Chinese the airline China Southern Airlines will start scheduled flights between Beijing and Helsinki on March 29, Finavia informs.

This is the company’s first route connection to Finland and the Nordic countries.

China Southern is one of China’s largest airlines, and it already flies to several European destinations.

The route will initially be flown three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. From June 20, flights will be operated daily.

The route is operated with Boeing 787-9 aircraft. The flight time is about 8–9 hours, says the airline on his Instagram account.

“We are happy that the popular Beijing route is reopening. The connection serves both business and leisure travel in both directions,” says Finavia’s director of route development Petri Vuori in the bulletin.

The flight connection between Beijing and Helsinki-Vantaa stopped during the corona pandemic and was interrupted for five years.

Until March, you can only fly from Helsinki-Vantaa to China on the wings of Finnair and Juneyao Airlines. They operate between Shanghai and Helsinki-Vantaa, and Juneyao Airlines also flies to Zhengzhou.

New the air connection will probably increase not only route but also price competition.

Currently, Finnair or other EU airlines do not fly over Russia, so it is difficult for them to compete on Asian routes against Chinese companies that do not have the same restriction.

Russia imposed an overflight ban on airlines from EU countries after the start of the war of aggression in Ukraine in 2022.

Read more: HS analysis: Two huge airlines may land at Helsinki-Vantaa already in the spring

Professor of logistics at Aalto University Markku Kuula rated for HS previouslythat opening a route from Beijing to Helsinki is good news for the airport company Finavia but bad news for Finnair.

“For Finavia, this means more business. In other words, the airport will become much more attractive and there will probably be more transit, which will increase the number of passengers. Likewise, the amount of cargo will increase,” Kuula told HS on Monday.

“Finnairia, this is probably starting to get a little cold.”