HELSINKI, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Finnish national carrier Finnair announced on Wednesday that it will reduce frequencies to European destinations in September, while flying more to Lapland and Kuusamo, popular tourist destinations in northern Finland.
Due to the deteriorating situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, many European countries have imposed travel restrictions once again in recent weeks, resulting in lower-than-expected demand, Finnair said in a press release, adding that some domestic destinations are also served at a lower frequency than before.
The airline thus plans to fly in September to almost all European destinations that were flown in August, but with fewer flights.
In September the airline will operate about 30 percent of the flights it flew one year earlier, said Mikko Turtiainen, head of global marketing communications at Finnair, in the press release.
But it will increase flights to Ivalo and Kittila in Lapland eight times a week respectively, and Kuusamo in the northeast of Finland nine times a week, in September, according to the press release.
Since June, Finland has gradually reopened its borders with many countries around the world as the situation of the COVID-19 epidemic had been assessed as stable. In line with the border reopening, Finnair has increased its traffic and has been serving more than 30 destinations in Europe and some Asian destinations, including Shanghai, Hong Kong of China, Tokyo of Japan, and Seoul of South Korea since July.
However, during the last two weeks, the Finnish government had decided to resume travel restrictions on Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Andorra, as the COVID-19 occurrence rate in those countries had started increasing and exceeded the Finnish criteria.
On Monday, Finland announced that it would start quarantining all people arriving from countries considered by Finland unsafe regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. People will be allowed to spend the 14-day quarantine time at home. Breaking the rules would constitute a criminal act and the maximum penalty for disobeying the quarantine order is currently three-month imprisonment or fine. Enditem
