Helsinki, Finland, June 30
By Daniyar Mukhtarov - Trend:
Finland's Finnair national airline views the possibility of opening direct air service between Helsinki and Astana (Kazakhstan), Managing Director of Finnair Flight Academy, Mikko Salminen said in his exclusive interview with Trend.
"We view the possibility of organizing direct air service between Helsinki and Astana. This is a topical issue and it is discussed during the negotiations between our countries, in particular, between the ministries of transport and communications of the two countries," he said.
"Nevertheless, currently, Kazakhstan's AirAstana national airline doesn't perform flights to Helsinki. At the same time, the planes of our airline do not fly to Astana and Almaty from Helsinki. But we are very interested in performing these flights."
Meanwhile, the managing director pointed out that direct charter flights opened from Kazakhstan to Lapland in 2013 for the Kazakh tourists wishing to visit the 'homeland of Santa Klaus'.
"Increasing the number of direct flights to Asia is among out strategic tasks. The number of these flights has significantly increased in the last four years. If we performed almost 75 flights to Asian countries in 2010, currently their number has doubled," Salminen stressed.
He underscored that this strategy has been chosen taking into account the rapid development of the Asian countries in recent years. Additionally, Finland's geographical position (northern Europe) gives opportunity to create a peculiar northern hub between Europe and Asia.
"We have 60 and 20 destinations in Europe and Asia, respectively. At the same time, our flights are very fast, there are no long lines , which allows to save time," the managing director said.
Finnair is the largest Finnish airline, based in Vantaa. It is a member of the Oneworld alliance. Finnair is one of the oldest companies in Europe; it was founded on November 1, 1923 under the name of Aero OY.
Edited by CN
