Press "Enter" to skip to content

Using Finns to fly: First international flights at Svalbard Airport scheduled by Finnair beginning next summer

0 0
Read Time:1 Minute, 27 Second

Finnair will become the first airline to offer scheduled international service to Svalbard Airport with direct flights between Helsinki and Longyearbyen from June 1 to Aug. 27 of next year, the airline announced in a press release this week.

“During midsummer we will provide three weekly flights to Svalbard, which is mainly aimed at European customers, but can be also be connected from our Asian flights,” said  Petri Vuori, Finnair’s Vice-President of Global Sales, in a prepared statement.

That means three airlines will be offering regular flights to Longyearbyen next summer, in contrast to the monopoly Scandinavian Airlines had for five years until 2013. Discount carrier Norwegian Air resumed service in March of that year, significantly boosting and redefining Svalbard’s tourism industry in ways both praised and criticized. Still, many locals are hoping the additional competition will allow the positive aspects to continue.

“Let the bidding wars commence,” wrote Benjamin Vidmar, a Longyearbyen resident, in the comments section of a Barents Observer article about the announcement. “Now I hope the prices come down as more airlines come online. Presently it is more expensive to fly from Oslo to Longyearbyen, than it is to fly from Oslo to just about anywhere else in Europe.”

Initial round-trip fairs at Finnair’s website start at 198 Euro (1,829 kroner) for the roughly three-hour flights. The inaugural inbound flight is scheduled to to depart Helsinki at 11:45 p.m. (Finnish time) and arrive in Svalbard at 1:45 a.m. (local time). It is scheduled to depart Longyearbyen at 2:45 a.m.

Passengers flying to and from the Longyearbyen will need to go through passport control and customs since Svalbard is not part of the Schengen Area.

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
Happy
Happy
0 %
Sad
Sad
0 %
Excited
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
Angry
0 %
Surprise
Surprise
0 %

Average Rating

5 Star
0%
4 Star
0%
3 Star
0%
2 Star
0%
1 Star
0%