Finnair to fly tourists back home from Bangkok on Saturday

Airport chaos cost Finnair around EUR 4 million

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The Finnish airline Finnair announced on Wednesday that it is to resume its scheduled flights from Helsinki to Bangkok today - Thursday. The service will return to the regular timetable starting with the 23:55 flight from Helsinki.
      The aircraft is to leave the Thai capital for Helsinki on Saturday at 00:35 local time.
      At the same time, the exceptional arrangements - including a massive repatriation operation from Phuket in the south of Thailand - will come to an end, reported Finnair spokesperson Hanna-Kaisa Nurmi in Bangkok.
     
The airline estimates that a total of 1,800 Finnair passengers were waiting for return flights in Thailand on Wednesday. They will all be carried from Thailand to their destinations in the course of the next week, the company reports. About half of the passengers are Finns.
      Finnair announced further that seats on this week's Bangkok flights can be reserved primarily by the original passengers of the flights, but there is still space for new reservations as well.
     
According to Finnair, the expense of the exceptional arrangements, as well as losses of revenue in passenger and cargo traffic, have cost Finnair around EUR 4 million at this stage. Knock-on effects are expected to push the final cost total still higher.
      Finnair has operated in Thailand under exceptional circumstances since Tuesday of last week, when demonstrators occupied the Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok. During last week and this, Finnair mounted a huge repatriation operation from Phuket for its scheduled passengers.
     
Thailand is a major draw for Finnish winter holidaymakers, and Bangkok itself was one of the first destinations to be opened up in Finnair's rapidly expanded Asian traffic.
      It remains to be seen exactly how much damage the recent political upheavals have done to the Thai tourist industry, which has only recently recovered from the ill-effects of the tsunami that hit the Andaman Sea resorts in late 2004. An outpouring of public sympathy on that occasion overcame the grief at many Scandinavian lives lost (nearly 200 Finns were among them), but things may be different this time.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnair starts scheduled flights to Thailand on Wednesday (3.12.2008)
  Finnair passengers stranded in Bangkok vent frustration at airline (2.12.2008)
  Passengers stuck in Thailand angered by scant information forthcoming from Finnair (1.12.2008)
  Hundreds of Finns remain stuck in Bangkok (28.11.2008)
  Finnair Bangkok flight returns to Helsinki as nearly 400 Finns remain stuck in Thailand (26.11.2008)

Links:
  Finnair Group Stock Exchange release 3.12.2008: FINNAIR ASSUMES SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS THAILAND PASSENGERS
  Finnair Group press release 3.12.2008: Finnair scheduled flights to Bangkok will resume tomorrow

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