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Finland’s ambassador to Australia has said he would like to see Sydney and Perth as additional destinations for direct Finnair flights.
Speaking exclusively to Australian Aviation, Ambassador Arto Haapea said Melbourne was a natural fit for Australia’s first Finnair connection to Helsinki, which took off on Monday, but that other Australian destinations will hopefully be on the cards for the airline.
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“I’m personally very happy that it’s Melbourne. We’ve got a significant Finnish population in Melbourne. We’ve got a Finnish business chamber operating in Melbourne, so it’s definitely a good destination,” he said.
“We’re currently in Sydney and we’ve been meeting some of the politicians here, a lot of them have said, ‘Why Melbourne? Sydney is much better for them’. But that, of course, depends on where you look at it from.
“I would never say no if Finnair decided they wanted to fly to Sydney. That would be a great sign. But I would say Western Australia is another great state in Australia with which we have a lot of collaboration. We know that it’s far away from the east coast to get to Perth.
“I have no idea if anything is in the cards. I think Finnair probably will want to see how this flight connection starts working, also financially, how profitable it can be. But if they do expand in the future, I do hope that they will find other destinations in Australia.”
The ambassador added that Australia is an important relationship for Finland in terms of travel, industry and defence, and that his government has been “trying to find every possible way to make this relationship closer”.
“I tend to joke often that, for example, Finnish companies go as far from Finland as a direct Finnair flight takes them, so we tend to see a lot of Finnish companies in places like Japan, Korea, Singapore, and of course we have a number of them also in Australia, but a significantly lower number,” he said.
“Our great hope is that with this new flight connection, more Finnish companies will be exploring this market and finding business opportunities here.
“Of course, it’s also important from the perspective of people-to-people connections. We have a significant Finnish diaspora in Australia, and they will find this flight connection very worthwhile when they do go back to Finland, visit family and friends.
“So there’s a number of avenues there, and equally so, I want to see Australian business people finding this connection for them to go back to Finland and see what Finland has to offer.”
Finnair will fly daily between Melbourne and Helsinki via Bangkok, bringing an estimated $190 million a year to the Victorian economy.
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