Dear Travel Agent Partner
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DEAR TRAVEL AGENT PARTNER, before we all jump into the summer holiday season, we wish to give you the latest updates on how Finland is now open for travelers, give an update on our schedules as well as summarize all the important topics from our previous newsletters. FINLAND IS NOW OPENING FOR TRAVEL Travelling from EU and Schengen countries to Finland has eased with relaxed travel guidance. Also, starting from the 12th of July we as an airline will no longer require corona certificates on our flights to Finland, as the authorities will check them on your arrival. All travel documents and needed certificates are however still checked when departing from a country from where entry remains restricted or when traveler is going to transfer in Helsinki and will continue their journey onwards on an international flight. Please see a summary of the relaxed travel guidance to Finland below. The full set of guidelines can be found on our website article on travelling to Finland. You can also check current entry restrictions to Finland on our interactive travel restrictions map. 1. TRAVELLING TO FINLAND BETWEEN 12TH OF JULY – 25TH OF JULY 2021 There will be an interim entry model in place on 12-25 July 2021. Travelers can enter Finland without restrictions from EU and Schengen countries where the coronavirus incident rate is below 25. If the incident rate is above 25, travel to Finland is allowed for business or other essential reason. Entering Finland from third countries is allowed for essential reasons and without restrictions from EU green list countries where the coronavirus incident rate is below 25. Travelers may be directed to a health check upon arrival in Finland. Coronavirus testing upon arrival doesn’t concern travelers who fulfill one of the following: • those who have been fully vaccinated at least 14 days before your trip or • those who carry a certificate stating that they’ve had had a coronavirus infection within 6 months and are now symptomless. Those arriving only with a certificate of a negative coronavirus test result need to take a new test 72- 120 hours after arrival. The full set of guidelines can be found on our website article on travelling to Finland. 2. TRAVELLING TO FINLAND BETWEEN 26TH OF JULY – 15TH OF OCTOBER 2021 Finland welcomes travel from EU and Schengen countries freely without quarantine or test upon arrival, when one of the following conditions is met. This guidance applies also for Finnish nationals and residents. In case none of the above listed options are met, travelers are required to take a coronavirus test upon arrival or latest 24 hours after arrival. The list of low risk countries (virus incidence rate < 10) can be checked on the Finnish Border Guard’s website. We advise all our passengers to sign in to FINENTRY service to get personalized guidance for entry to Finland. Travelling to Finland from outside of the EU and Schengen area remains restricted. However, travel guidance has been relaxed from the low-risk countries. Also note that Finnish nationals and residents can always return home. Check on the Finnish Border Guard’s website for the list of countries from where entry is allowed. If entry from a certain country is allowed, travelers can arrive in Finland without quarantine or test upon arrival, when one of the following conditions is met: • traveler has been fully vaccinated at least 14 days before travel or • traveler has a certificate stating that they’ve had a coronavirus infection within the past 6 months and are now symptomless or • traveler has been born in 2006 or later. Travelers can also enter with only one vaccination taken at least 14 days before travel or with only a certificate of a negative test result, but they need to take a new test 72-120 hours after arrival. The full set of guidelines can be found on our website article on travelling to Finland. As travel restrictions are subject to change on a short notice, travelers are always responsible for ensuring themselves that they fulfill the requirements of their destination and possible transit country. We also like to remind you that transfer traffic via Finland is allowed. For guidelines when travelling via Finland to another country, please read more here. Please note that regardless of the relaxing travel guidance to Finland, we still continue to enforce our safe travel measures on our flights and mask is still required both on board and at Helsinki Airport. OUR LONG-HAUL NETWORK – WINTER HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS NOW ADDED As reported in our earlier newsletters, our destinations in Asia during this summer season are Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, and Bangkok. The long-awaited Thai holiday destinations for the winter season are now also available in the GDS; Phuket three times per week starting on the 3rd of December and Krabi twice a week from the 7th of December. And we will of course be adding flights to Bangkok in the winter season. In North America our destinations for the summer season are New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. All three destinations will continue also for the winter season and we will be adding Miami to the network starting from the 6th of November. Check the schedules and the connections in the GDS. A NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH JUNEYAO AIR ON OUR SHANGHAI ROUTE On July 1st we will enter into a joint business with Shanghai-based Juneyao Air and will cooperate commercially on flights between Helsinki and Shanghai as well points beyond in China and Europe. We started a codeshare cooperation already in July 2019, when Juneyao Air launched its Shanghai- Helsinki route. This joint business further deepens our partnership and provides our corporate and leisure customers with more flexible routing options, attractive fares, and enhanced benefits for frequent flyer members. Our customers will benefit from more consistent customer policies for example with baggage allowances, integrated customer care and enhanced frequent flyer award point accrual across Finnair and Juneyao Air. Finnair customers will benefit from improved connectivity to a network of 57 destinations in China from Juneyao’s Shanghai Pudong hub, and Juneyao customers will enjoy better access to Finnair’s extensive network of 65 European destinations via its Helsinki hub. The flights and fares are available in the GDS. Together with Juneyao Air we currently operate two flights per week between Helsinki and Shanghai and look forward to increasing frequencies as soon as the pandemic situation allows. TICKET TYPE RENEWAL AND NEW GROUP BOOKING TOOL In our newsletter earlier in June, we told you about how we have now extended the availability of our three ticket types, Light, Classic and Flex, to all our booking classes and to more routes. We have gathered all the necessary information in Finnair Easy, including questions and answers as well as easy charts to check which ticket types are available on which routes. We also want to remind you of Finnair Group Travel, the new online booking platform for IATA- registered travel agents where you can easily create quotes and bookings, make amendments and issue tickets for group bookings. You can read more about Finnair Group Travel here and register for the service here. ISSUES WITH CONTACTING OUR AGENT INFO Our customer service and agent info are currently extremely busy with contacts from customers and agents with questions regarding the rescheduled and cancelled flights for the coming months. We truly apologize for the long waiting times and we are also aware that sometimes your calls are not coming through. We are working on solving the technical issues and expect the number of contacts to our customer service and agent info to remain high in the coming weeks. We have gathered all the necessary information on how to handle bookings and tickets on our COVID- 19 instruction page on Finnair Easy; read the instructions carefully as in most cases you can change/refund tickets yourself in your own GDS. If your issue is not urgent or it concerns flights on a later date but still requires you to talk to our agent info, we ask you to contact us a bit later. Thank you for your co-operation and thank you for your hard work in taking care of our customers. ENJOY THE SUMMER SEASON Regardless of the extraordinary circumstances, we hope that you get to enjoy the summer season and look forward to getting back to business with you after the summer break! WITH KIND REGARDS The Finnair sales team .