New Route of the Day (11 April 2026): Finnair between Helsinki and Valencia

Finnair added yet another new route to its network by inaugurating flights between Helsinki and Valencia on Saturday 11 April. The 2,915-kilometre service will be maintained 2-weekly, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, with the carrier’s A320-family fleet. The oneworld member has no competition on the route.

Flight AY1703 departs Helsinki at 06:20 local time, arriving in Valencia at 09:50 local time. The return service, operating as flight AY1704, takes off at 10:35 local time, touching back down in the Finnish capital at 15:45 local time.

What they said

Geoffrey Carrage, Regional Director, Southern Europe at Finnair, said: “The launch of our new Helsinki – Valencia service represents an important step in strengthening Finnair’s presence in Spain. Helsinki is a highly efficient airport for connections. From there, we offer an extensive network of destinations, particularly across Asia, with frequent flights to cities such as Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. In fact, some of these destinations are already generating interest among Spanish travellers, especially Japan and South Korea. There is also a growing appeal of the Nordic countries as tourist destinations, as more people are seeking places with milder summer temperatures. More and more travellers are looking to escape the heat and are opting for cooler destinations. The Nordic countries, and Finland in particular, are seeing rising interest. We are also optimistic about the performance of the new route in its initial months. We know that a new connection takes time to mature, but we are seeing a solid pace of bookings and believe it will develop positively.”

Finnair adding 11 new routes this summer

The Helsinki-based carrier is planning to add 11 new routes to its network this summer, while dropping only one. Five of these routes have already launched, with Valencia complementing Catania, Florence, Luxembourg and Stavanger. Set to follow are Tirana, Turin, Thessaloniki, Kos and Toronto YYZ and Kuressaare.

The Finnish carrier will continue expanding this coming winter as well, with the launch of its much-anticipated new service from Helsinki to Melbourne on 25 October, which will operate via Bangkok and make it just the third European carrier to serve Australia, joining British Airways and Turkish Airlines. This will be followed by the launch of Krabi flights on 26 October.

Last summer, SAS had the most new routes among Europe’s flag carriers, from Copenhagen Airport. The airline has continued to grow there this summer, but not as quickly as Finnair at Helsinki Airport.