Helsinki Airport will be closed tonight at 12 p.m. EET due to the dust cloud discharged into the air by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland. In these circumstances, Finnair had to cancel its operations until Friday, April 16th at 3 p.m. EET. - We are doing our best to help passengers whose flights are cancelled due to dust cloud. We are prepared to continue operation fast as soon as the restrictions are removed. Until then we recommend our customers to postpone their travel, says Timo Riihimäki, SVP Customer Service. On Thursday, Finnair had to cancel about 40 return flights which affected 8,000 passengers. Passengers whose flights are cancelled may transfer their journey to a later date until 15 May 2010 by contacting Finnair or the travel agency that sold their ticket. Flight cancellations can be viewed on the Finavia website at the address www.finavia.fi. If their flight is cancelled, passengers are advised not to come to the airport. Passengers can also apply for a refund for Finnair flight tickets that remain unused due to cancellations. Information is being updated continually at the address www.finnair.com/info. Finnair Plc Communications 15.4.2010