Finnair to Begin Serving Fukuoka and Guangzhou in 2016

Finnair will add scheduled services to two new Asian destinations, Fukuoka in Japan and Guangzhou in China, in its summer 2016 season.

The airline – which on October 7 became the first European airline to take delivery of an Airbus A350 XWB widebody – will begin operating three round-trips a week between its Helsinki Vantaa Airport hub and Fukuoka in southern Japan in spring 2016.

Following delivery of its first Airbus A350-900, Finnair was due to receive another 18 of the type

According to Finnair, its new service to Fukuoka will make it the only European carrier to operate to four different cities in Japan. Finnair already operates daily round-trips to Tokyo Narita, Nagoya and Osaka.

Finnair will also operate four round-trips a week between Helsinki and Guangzhou in China between May 6 and October 29, 2016.

“We intend to double our Asian traffic by 2020 from the 2010 baseline, and these new destinations are an important step towards this target,” says Pekka Vauramo, Finnair’s president and CEO.

A Finnair Airbus A330-300 lands at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport on the afternoon of June 8, 2012, after completing a long-haul flight from Asia

“We have a long tradition of connecting Asia and Europe with smooth fast connections via our Helsinki hub, and I look forward to expanding our network to these two exciting markets,” adds Vauramo.

Finnair will operate both its new Asia service with Airbus A330-300 widebodies.

The carrier will connect Fukuoka and Guangzhou to more than 60 destinations via its Helsinki hub, with timetables designed for transfer traffic.

Finnair operates eight Airbus A330-300s on long-haul routes. Five are configured to seat 263 passengers, with the other three aircraft each configured to seat 285

Guangzhou is the third largest city in China, with a population of 13 million. It is a major trade and transportation center, and the main manufacturing hub in one of mainland China’s leading commercial and manufacturing regions.

The capital of China’s Guangdong province, Guangzhou will be Finnair’s sixth destination in Greater China. Finnair operates year-round services to Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and a summer service to Xi’an.

Finnair’s service to Fukuoka, which is one of the largest cities in Japan, will be included in the Europe-Japan joint business operated by Finnair, British Airways and Japan Airlines.