Today’s article is from Callum, one of the newest recruits to the TLFL team. You can read more about Callum here. You may notice for the next couple of weeks that there are less articles from me and more from other people. That’s because I am working on a new look for the TLFL website and brand which should be finished by mid-September.
Following hot on the heels of partnerships with other oneworld members including British Airways and others, luxury carrier Qatar Airways has penned a ‘strategic partnership’ with Finland’s national airline, Finnair. Here’s the lowdown on what you can expect.
In this post:
The basics
Announced on Monday, Finnair will connect Helsinki, Stockholm, and Copenhagen seven times each week respectively to the capital of Qatar, Doha, from November 2022. The two airlines have stated they are assessing launching joint flights between a fourth European city and Doha too. The press release states the usual buzzwords of being able to ‘connect seamlessly’ and opening new destinations for Qatar customers in the Nordics as well as Finnair customers across the globe.
The services will operate under a comprehensive codeshare agreement with the two airlines’ shared passenger and cargo capacity. Finnair will be using their excellent but controversial Air Lounge seat in Business Class as well as offering premium economy – despite the class being derided by Qatar CEO Akbar Al Bakar.
Why are they doing this?
If you look beyond the press announcement, Qatar Airways and Finnair are currently in difficult but quite different situations. For the former, they are being hit by the grounding of some Qatar Airways A350 aircraft due to paint degradation issues and subsequent safety concerns. The airline is clearly growing their presence globally, but the A350 issue has led to an irrefutable breakdown in the Airbus relationship leading to the cancellation of the remaining A350 order and the A321neo.
Qatar clearly needs more aircraft to serve their hub and sustain growth in the market. This is being served by the return of the A380 despite Al Bakar describing it as a ‘mistake’ and saying they are eager to exit the fleet. The other method Qatar Airways is increasing its reach is through many partnerships, with the majority from the oneworld alliance. Examples to Doha include:
- British Airways operating one flight from Heathrow daily, previously another at Gatwick.
- American Airlines operating a New York-JFK to Doha flight daily.
- Lease of several Cathay Pacific 777 aircraft while Hong Kong is still largely closed to the world.
- Partnerships with incoming oneworld member Oman Air.
- Air Canada, part of rival Star Alliance, serving Toronto to Doha a few times per week on a codeshare basis to connect to Qatar Airways.
For Finnair, the reason is even more pronounced. The Finnish airline, which also happens to be my favourite European carrier, heavily leaned on the Asian market for connecting traffic from their home continent. The geographic position made sense for connections along with an excellently designed airport makes it an excellent choice. Pre-pandemic, Finnair served six destinations in Greater China, five in Japan and South Korea as well as three in Thailand and Singapore.
While Southeast Asia is open, Japan and China are still exceptionally difficult to get into as a visitor with the latter still enforcing strict quarantine procedure exacerbated by the impact of Russian airspace closure. With a fleet focussed on long-haul A350 aircraft, the airline needs to reorient. Previously they did this by utilising some aircraft from Stockholm to the US and Bangkok, which as a side note, appears to be cancelled as I received notification of one of my flights being cancelled in January.
The agreement between Qatar Airways and Finnair is mutually beneficial – and one that could be beneficial to many readers of this website.
What does this mean for you?
As travel enthusiasts, we often go out of our way to score the best deal on our flights – whether that be using points of departure from an airport in Europe (ex-EU deals). Stockholm is one of the best places one can choose for ex-EU deals on their flights. In 2019, I scored Stockholm to Bangkok for around £1200 return, while I recently flew Thai on the same route for a comparable price. Similar routes from London will easily be two to three times more expensive, not to mention the more tier points and miles one will earn.
More flights from the home of the best ex-EU eastbound flight deal are only a positive for savvy consumers looking to turn left for less. These flights will be sold via Qatar Airways and Finnair, meaning you can credit directly to your BA Executive Club account earning attractive status levels in the process. Some may be disappointed to learn they won’t be receiving Qatar Airways famed service levels or the Q Suite, which sporadically appears on these routes, but I suspect many who enjoy flying will also enjoy flying a different airline on one leg of their connecting journey.
The flights operated by Finnair are yet to go on sale, and neither have the schedules been released. As the flights will launch in November and December, ahead of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, expect them to go on sale in the near future when one hopes for some cost-effective pricing to long-haul destinations.
11 comments
Good article Callum.
I think I bagged the deal of the century in Jan with AY. Originally AMS-HEL-HKG-BKK and changed 48 hrs by them as they cancelled the Hong Kong stopping flight ( annoying as it lowered the TP earnings but hey) and now that routing both ways minus the HKG part. In J, A350-900 all sectors and £2342 for the pair of us.
When I got a “Mega Sale” email from them this week I priced up the exact schedule and booking classes to see it was an eye watering £9585 for 24th October out and 14th November back.
Wow! Excellent offer Clayton! I’m sure you don’t mind having the extra stop dropped. I hope you manage to get a significant status bump from that trip.
Annoyingly it’s meant we’ve had to add another trip to qualify but hey a trip to the German xmas markets is never too much of a chore. The trip itself, along with the positioning flights, has covered a pretty big chunk of this years requirements though even with the loss of 80 and you’re right. We took the HKG stop as it was a lot cheaper and whilst we didn’t want the extra hours it was the better balance. Course we then got the £850pp flight for free when they canned the one we booked so swings & roundabouts
Excellent article. I had some very good ex-EU deals on QR from OSL. But prices now are discouraging.
This article gives a glimmer of hope.
Thanks Maurits. I never had much luck for QR from OSL, generally more at ARN. Fingers crossed that we can see some great offers come down the pipeline very soon…or at least when I need to renew for Silver! Happy travels.
Great piece, Callum. These new services take advantage of the new open skies agreement between the EU and Qatar which AF and LH wanted to delay. It’s still only being phased in in most markets.
Interesting…another angle I hadn’t considered! I guess this gives Qatar the opportunity to expand through Finnair.
I will be interested to see if this does expand into a JV in the near future similar to BA/QR or the Transatlantic JV.
I assume considering the amount of traffic between UK – UAE and Qatar that we have quite a ‘liberal sky’?
I strongly disagree, on the whole I think this is very bad news for customers. Who wants to go from Helsinki to X, Y or Z via Doha where they could previously fly direct? Unless Finnair expands, their frequencies to Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore will be cut or possibly even eliminated to provide the metal for increased flights to Doha and expansion of closer markets such as India, especially when China and Japan reopen. So, shorter and more profitable routes for Finnair, and another European feeder for Qatar which might soon face restrictions on access to Europe due to tge consequencies of their Airbus dispute, means good news for both airlines but I see no benefit for passengers.
You make fair points BJ. Just to tackle a few of them:
– most ex-EU flights will make for circuitous routing which people will either justify through the additional tier points or lower ticket cost
– It’s worth noting that for China specifically, Finnair can only operate one flight per week to one destination in the whole of the PRC (not including Hong Kong). It seems highly unlikely the PRC will be opening any time soon to mass inbound travel. Without China, the Finnair Asian route network is far reduced.
– Passengers will benefit from more capacity, more frequencies and options.
– The Airbus issue you noted does seem to be conflating two issues…I do not suspect European authorities will make tit-for-tat action in response to the QR-Airbus legal dispute.
Great update. Definitely hoping for a qr j sale to Asia on the back of this agreement. We have in the past got great qr j deals from all 4 departure points incl osl. Looking for one late jan for a month to anywhere in Asia. Not hkg tho.
Thanks Polly. Most of South East Asia is very open right now – the Philippines is a great choice when I just visited! Qatar fly via Doha to both Manila and Cebu (the superior airport in my opinion).
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