Dubai, UAE, December 13, 2017:  The storm in Central Europe and the runway restrictions caused by heavy snowfall in Helsinki Airport on Tuesday congested Finnair operations at Helsinki Airport severely on Tuesday evening. An overtime working ban by Finnish aviation union also contributed partly to the situation.

Finnair had to cancel over 60 legs, and many flights were delayed.

- We are extremely sorry for the delays and cancellations. We apologize to all our customers for the disruptions. Our customer service was badly congested, and there was not enough hotel capacity in Southern Finland for our customers whose onward journey was disrupted at Helsinki Airport, says Piia Karhu, SVP Customer Experience, Finnair.

- We delivered all available sandwiches, beverages and blankets to our customers at the airport during the night, and showed resting areas for families, elderly people and other passengers needing immediate rest. However, our measures weren’t sufficient in this situation, and we apologize sincerely for that. 
Finnair has sought alternative routings to its stranded customers throughout the night, and the work continues today on Wednesday. The new reservation, when allocated, is visible for customers on the Finnair mobile app and on the Manage Booking service on Finnair’s website.

Disruptions expected in the coming days

During the night Finnair panned how to recover its operations as soon as possible. The recovery to normal traffic and rerouting of all customers will however take time. According to the current estimate, delays are expected in domestic and European traffic today on Wednesday and complete recovery traffic is expected on Thursday. Long haul traffic is expected to recover for most part on Thursday.