Finnair’s Pilot Union announced on Wednesday (read more here) that they would be striking for two days on December 9 (pilots) and 13 (first officers), 2024.
Finnair has now released a list of 300 flights that it has preemptively canceled for December 9 and 13, with a spillover effect also for flights on December 10, 11, and 14.
You can access Finnair here.
Canceled Flights:
Finnair Press Release:
Finnair cancels flights on 9 and 13 December due to pilot strike; reroutes customers
The Finnish Air Line Pilots’ Association has announced a strike taking place on 9 and 13 December 2024. The pilot strike will impact Finnair’s capability to operate flights and forces Finnair to cancel a total of approximately 300 flights from the strike days. The strike will also impact some individual flights in the days before and after these. The pilot strike is expected to impact approximately 33,000 Finnair customers.
“It is disappointing that the Finnish Air Line Pilots’ Association has chosen to strike rather than negotiate. This unfortunately disrupts the travel plans of thousands of our customers during the pre-Christmas season. We are doing everything we can to serve our customers well even in this difficult situation and will offer alternative flights to as many customers as possible,” says Finnair’s Chief Operating Officer Jaakko Schildt.
Finnair has to cancel approximately 140 flights from 9 December and approximately 150 flights from 13 December. Customers will receive information about the cancellation as soon as it has been made, and when possible, they will also get a new routing, which will be visible in Finnair’s Manage booking service and mobile app.
Due to the large number of customers to be rerouted, it is unfortunately not possible to offer everyone a rerouting that is close to the original. In such cases Finnair asks customers to kindly contact Finnair customer service to find a suitable route option. If a suitable new flight cannot be found, customers can apply for a refund of the ticket price from Finnair Customer Service or, if the ticket was purchased through a travel agent, from the travel agency in question.
“We are extremely sorry for the worry and inconvenience this situation causes our customers,” says Jaakko Schildt. “Finding suitable new flights for thousands of customers takes time, and our customer service will be congested during the weekend, so we ask our customers to be patient. We are all doing our utmost to make it possible for our customers to carry out their travel plans despite this unfortunate situation.”
Flights that will be cancelled as for now are listed in the attachment. Detailed instructions for customers are available in the Travel updates section of Finnair.com.
EC 261/2004 Air Passenger Rights
The airline must rebook affected passengers to their final destinations as soon as possible, even when this means moving them to other airlines such as Emirates, Lufthansa, or British Airlines.
Finnair is also required to provide Duty to Care in case of long delays and cancellations (hotel accommodation and meals). If the airline, in this case Finnair, cannot arrange this, you should do it yourself and later claim the expense.
Airline employee strikes are not considered an extraordinary event for delay and cancellation compensation, so if your arrival to the final destination was delayed, you may be eligible for 600 euros per passenger.
Conclusion
The Finnair management must be pretty certain this strike will proceed, as they are often called off at the last minute when parties have reached an agreement.
It is not quite Christmas and year-end yet, so according to their press release, Finnair is trying to find alternate flights for the roughly 33,000 affected passengers.
You may have to prompt them to rebook you on other airlines, as they probably try to keep as many passengers as possible on their flights.
