The Finnish Flight Attendants' Association (SLSY) and The Finnish Aviation Union (IAU) issued a warning of industrial action to the Association of Support Service Industries (PALTA) on November 1, 2013. The planned industrial action would take place during the period November 15 to November 23. The strikes scheduled for alternate days would paralyze Finnair’s traffic almost completely.
“Negotiations are still ongoing and we’re hoping we can reach an agreement and avoid the strike. However, we have to prepare for the possible strike. We are very sorry for the worries the strike threat is causing our customers. Should the strike begin we would naturally do our best to take care of our customers,” says Ville Iho, Finnair’s Chief Operating Officer.
Finnair has now evaluated the impacts of the possible strikes to its traffic and its abilities to continue operations during the strike period. The possible strikes are planned so that the personnel represented by the respective labour unions would strike on alternate days. This would in practice paralyze Finnair’s traffic almost completely for the period of at least 9 days, despite SLSY ruling Finnair’s long-haul and leisure traffic outside the strike.
As Finnair operates its traffic as a network, both its European and Asian flights have to be operated seamlessly every day. Because the number of long-haul passengers terminating their journey in Helsinki represents a minor part of all passengers, even long-haul traffic comes to a halt when European traffic winds down or when aircraft turnarounds are challenged.
Finnair estimates that within the limits of the possible strikes it can operate some of its European flights. Of the long-haul flights, one daily flight to Bangkok would be operated. Finnair would operate leisure flights in all cases. Finnair advises its customers to take the following action:
- Those customers whose trip takes place during the possible strike days can postpone their trip without extra charges according to the instructions given at http://www.finnair.fi/en/info.
- Make sure mobile phone numbers and other contact information are up to date in the travel reservation.
- Monitor flight status at http://www.finnair.com/INT/GB/flights/flightlist.
- We are also communicating on Twitter and informing our customers by SMS. We apologize that our customer service may be busy in case of a strike.
- If a flight is cancelled, the customer has the possibility to postpone the trip, get rerouted if possible, or ask for a refund. More detailed instructions can be found at http://www.finnair.fi/en/info.
If the strike is still threatened on Thursday, Finnair will then announce the flights to be operated on Friday.
The timetables of all flights and the number of flights to destinations may deviate from normal and changes may occur.
Finnair customers can best find up to date information on Finnair’s operations and the progress of the negotiations from Finnair’s electronic channels:
Infosite: http://www.finnair.fi/en/info
Information on cancelled flights: http://www.finnair.com/INT/GB/flights/flightlist
Finnair on Twitter: www.twitter.com/finnair
Finnair on Facebook: www.facebook.com/finnair
More information: Finnair Media Desk tel. +358 9 818 4020, comms(at)finnair.com