HEL’s bells – Ryanair finally decides to serve Helsinki with eight new routes this winter

Ryanair announced on Wednesday 23 June that it would start regular services to Helsinki starting this winter from eight of its bases. The Finnish capital has not previously featured in the Irish ULCC’s list of destinations, though its Austrian subsidiary Laudamotion operated flights briefly from Vienna last summer. The airport will not be a base, as all routes will be served using aircraft based at the other end of the route. In addition, Ryanair plans to resume its London STN to Tampere service, last operated in the summer 0f 2015. This will be very convenient for attendees at next February’s CONNECT route development conference in Tampere, at which The ANKER Report and Air Service One will both be present.

Finnair likely to be competing on six of the eight routes

The full list of new Helsinki routes is shown below (with Ryanair’s proposed frequency this winter in brackets) along with a note of carriers who served the same cities in W19/20 (using schedule data for February 2020): Brussels CRL (3-weekly): Finnair to Brussels BRU London STN (7-weekly): Finnair to London LHR, British Airways to London LHR, Norwegian to London LGW Kaunas (3-weekly): none Milan BGY (4-weekly): Finnair to Milan MXP Paris BVA (2-weekly): Finnair to Paris CDG Poznan (2-weekly): none Riga (4-weekly): Finnair to Riga, airBaltic to Riga Warsaw WMI (4-weekly): Finnair to Warsaw WAW

What they said

Ryanair’s CEO Eddie Wilson said: “We are delighted to expand our operations in Finland and return to Helsinki Airport with 29 departing flights per week across eight routes along with the addition of London Stansted to our Tampere-Pirkkala schedule, with 2 flights per week. Our Finnish customers will be even happier with a host of popular international destinations to choose from including Brussels, Milan Bergamo and Warsaw for Winter 2021/22.” Finavia’s SVP, Sales and Route Development, Petri Vuori, said: “We are happy that Ryanair is opening new routes from Helsinki Airport and Tampere-Pirkkala. We are pleased that Ryanair decided to make such a significant decision. It’s great that Finland’s wide range of good flight connections is gradually recovering. This is a signal that we are moving towards better times. Travelling through Finavia’s airports is smooth and safe.”