Finnair Cancels 69 Long-Haul Flights To The US + 160 Others June 1 – August 11, 2025

Finnair has preemptively canceled 230 flights scheduled for June 1 and August 11, 2025, citing a pilot shortage. It is simultaneously negotiating about furloughing up to 90 pilots if its wet-lease agreement with Qantas ends.

The airline has canceled 69 long-haul flights to the United States, only one long-haul flight elsewhere, and 160 intra-European narrowbody flights.

These cancellations took place this past week and affected up to 30,000 passengers who were informed and offered reroutings or refunds per the Finnair spokesperson’s comments to the Finnish media.

The reason behind the “shortage” is that pilots are currently refusing to do overtime or cover trips when one of the cockpit crew members calls in sick.

Finnair claims that the pilot union’s action threatens its arrangement with Qantas, which employs roughly 90 pilots. The airline operates Bangkok and Singapore to Sydney flights for Qantas under a wet lease agreement with Finnish cockpit crew and locally employed cabin crew members.

EC 261/2004 Air Passenger Rights

As Finnair is a community carrier, its flights are covered by the EU’s EC 261/2004 legislation.

The airline must offer rebooking at the earlier opportunity, even when this means moving the passengers to other airlines and provide Duty to Care (accommodation and meals) in case of long delays.

The passengers can also opt for a refund even on non-refundable tickets if they so choose. There is no delay compensation, however.

Conclusion

It is very convenient for Finnair that there is a shortage of pilots. They “must” cancel 69 long-haul flights to the US and only one elsewhere, considering that transatlantic demand is collapsing. Other airlines are seeing weak demand and trimming their schedules to/from the United States.

The underlying case that Finnair here struggles with is that the airline’s Asia/North Asia strategy collapsed when Russia attacked Ukraine, and flying over Siberia was no longer an option for Western airlines.

Finnair suddenly had too many widebody planes that it tried to repurpose elsewhere. The airline has provided wet-lease-type deals to several airlines (Lufthansa Group, Qatar Airways, and Qantas).

Finnair pivoted flying to more destinations in the United States, which may now cause additional headaches.

Source