A strike by cabin crew of the Finnish national airline Finnair began at four in the morning on Thursday. The strike has shut down normal scheduled flights almost completely.
The industrial action affects both domestic flights in Finland and international departures from Finland. Finnair hopes to fly holiday charter flights on schedule, but there were some cancellations.
The action was prompted by Finnair’s plans to recruit flight attendants crew for Finnair’s Estonian subsidiary Aero Airlines with pay benefits about 30 percent below the level enjoyed by Finnair personnel.
The situation at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was fairly calm early Thursday morning, although there was some confusion over what flights would be flown.
Queues were formed at check-in desks and ticket counters of the various airlines, as passengers tried to change their bookings to flights that were operating.
About one in four Finnair flights are to be flown on Thursday. About half of all flights departing from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport were cancelled.
Many of Finnair’s long-haul services had been cancelled, but in the morning hours there were flights to Brussels, for instance, with managerial staff and employees of Finnair’s subsidiary Aero filling in for the striking flight attendants.
There was confusion at the airport about which flights would be cancelled. Many passengers were upset because some flights - which were supposed to have been flown, according to information on Finnair’s web site - had been cancelled anyway.
One Finnair executive said that he expected that Thursday would be the most difficult day, and that of the 60 flights normally scheduled to fly, he expected that only 14 would be flown.
There is no indication on how long the strike might last. Negotiations continue in the afternoon.
