Finnair's introduction of direct flights to Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou this year is positioning Helsinki as China's new gateway to Europe. With a flight time of less than 10 hours, the Finnish capital is the shortest, fastest and most eco-efficient route between Asia and Europe.
Frequent connections through Helsinki-Vantaa Airport also enable fastest-possible links to many European destinations - including Italy, Spain and southern Europe.
The national carrier is now flying non-stop daily between Hong Kong and Finland in summer, with three flights a week in winter. Complementing the fastest route to Europe were 'excellent connections' to more than 50 destinations, said Ville Ahokas, country manager for Hong Kong, southern China and Macau.
This year's service upgrade improves on a previous schedule of three times a week via Bangkok.
Finnair now operates 25 flights a week to China. It has resulted in a 31 per cent increase in Chinese travellers staying overnight in Finland, surpassing 100,000 for the first time. The number of Finnish visitors to Hong Kong has also increased dramatically, from 11,604 in 2004 to 15,645 in 2005 and 18,616 last year. Finnair's traffic to Asia is expected to grow by 30 per cent this year.
'Already over half of our revenue comes from Asian traffic,' said Finnish Civil Aviation Administration spokeswoman Irmeli Paavola. 'Thanks to its geographical locations, Helsinki-Vantaa Airport is a natural place to change flights when travelling between Asia and Europe. In the future 'via Helsinki' will become a concept in travel between these two continents.'