British regional airline Flybe is to launch routes from Helsinki to detsinations including Tampere, Turku and Tallinn, in partnership with Finnish national carrier Finnair.
The co-operation will begin on October 31, and will see Flybe base three aircraft at the airport, serving the southern Finnish cities of Tampere and Turku, and the Estonian capital of Tallinn. Flybe and Finnair say they have also begun discussions on “a potential wider co-operation agreement, which could see Flybe providing a range of services across Nordic and Baltic Sea markets”.
The agreement should enable low-cost carrier Flybe to serve these secondary destinations using its smaller Bombardier Q400 aircraft, feeding traffic into Finnair’s long-haul routes to Asia.
The announcement is the latest in a string of partnerships for Flybe, with a codeshare agreement with Air France due to start later this year (see online news July 13), a similar codeshare already in place with Etihad Airways (see online news November 5, 2009), and a through check-in agreement recently launched with Virgin Atlantic (see online news January 12).
For more information visit flybe.com, finnair.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
