As we hit the final Weekly Wrap of 2025, there was no slowdown in news for the Australian travel industry.
It was a random European airline that caught us all by surprise on Thursday.
Oneworld alliance member and Qantas wet/dry-lease partner Finnair (AY) announced that, for the first time in its over 100-year history, it would provide a regular service to Australia.
Conversations inside the Flying Kangaroo would have been interesting to hear that day. It wasn’t featured at the presser, despite the pair’s recent dealings, and was seemingly left out of most of the comms.
More than one person suggested to travelBulletin that the tone seemed somewhat dismissive of the partnership. The flights won’t be codeshared.
Was that a few industry rumour-mongers trying to light a fire at the end of the year despite the intense heat? Perhaps.
Regardless, here is what we know. Flight AY145/146 will connect the Finnish capital of Helsinki with Melbourne, running daily (yes, daily from the get-go) via Bangkok using the carrier’s Airbus A350.
Head of Network Strategy and Development, Aaron McGarvey, confirmed in a press conference that its lease agreements with Qantas had helped guide strategy on the new route.
“Operationally, we learnt a lot from the Qantas wet-lease and it enabled us to break down some of the barriers to help us to launch this service,” he noted.
That included the initial wet-lease of two Finnair A330s which flew between Bangkok and Singapore to Sydney, helping Finland’s national carrier continue to employ pilots and cabin crew despite the shutdown of Russian airspace affecting its services, as the A330s did not have the range to go the long way around to Asia.
The wet-lease became a dry-lease in October with Qantas staffing the Finnair metal.
Why now?
Finnair making a play on Australian soil is a fascinating move for the highly rated but small European carrier.
The Finns are a nation of around 4.5 million who always punch above their weight, but it is arguably not the first destination that comes to the mind of Australians when they think of a European sojourn.
According to DFAT, Finnish visitors to Australia (visitor arrivals – 2023) hit 11,980, while Australian visitors to Finland (resident returns – 2023) was at 12,360.
McGarvey said, “There is such a large amount of demand between the two continents and when you add in Bangkok, we firmly believe that seven flights a week is the right way to go.”
While the demand seems strong, the brand itself will not be front-of-mind for Victorians, who unlike those in Sydney, have not seen the Finnair planes conducting regular QF-marked flights.
Indeed, few European carriers have been game enough to attempt to capitalise on the demand from Australians to get to Europe and vice versa. Instead, it is left to Qantas, the Asian power players like Malaysia Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines, among others, and the Middle East airlines.
Finnair will make it just three European carriers to have metal physically carrying out regular commercial flights that land in Australia – the other two being the recently-arrived Turkish Airlines, and British Airways – and we all knew how long Turkish Airlines was talked about without anything actually happening.
In fact, just two years ago, British Airways was the only European carrier to land in Australia. The most recent withdrawals were the seemingly doomed-from-the-start Air Austral, flying to Reunion Island, and Virgin Atlantic, heading to London via Hong Kong.
So why does Finnair think it can succeed where others didn’t? It is likely looking at some very interesting data, a little bit of which is accessible to us mere journalist mortals.
What (some of) the numbers say
The stats of the two European carriers already flying into Australia, plus Qantas on European routes, paints an interesting picture.
According to the latest BITRE statistics (August), success is not clear-cut for the established European airline, British Airways, but for the new(ish) player to the market, there is reason to believe the call to put metal Down Under was the right one.
Turkish Airlines now carries more people each month in and out of Australian than BA does.
Below is a graph that maps out total passengers for January -August 2024 and 2025 for Turkish Airlines (TK), British Airways (BA) and Qantas (QF – London services only). The data does not include passengers getting off at intermediate stops.
There is an upward trajectory for Qantas, albeit mild, but a similar trajectory for BA but in reverse. Turkish Airlines, after a slow start, has had a strong 2025 up to the latest data.
But there is a caveat. This is passenger data only, not revenue data, so how these airlines are enticing passengers on to their planes is not factored in here (ie: huge price drops or specials), but it’s not a secret that Qantas has hardly discounted European flights substantially of late.
Regardless, it’s clear that Turkish has been able to drive demand and has had a very strong June, July and August.
But we must also note in the BITRE stats on how full the flights to Europe are.
For this, I’ve broken it down by airline and destination with January to August figures. This is where the picture of Turkish Airlines isn’t quite as rosy – because while it is carrying a lot of passengers, there are also a lot of vacant seats.
Qantas and BA have a much closer ratio of pax to seats.
With Turkish Airlines still somewhat in the early days of operation to and from Australia, the plan may well be to flood the market a little for visibility and to provide consumer value before readjusting the strategy.
Whatever the situation, Finnair would have reason to believe, based on these basic BITRE statistics, that there is plausibility in a daily flight from Melbourne to Helsinki via Bangkok.
As an added bonus, it already serves Bangkok from Helsinki and is aware of the market opportunity there. The opportunity for Melbourne to Bangkok would also be fairly simple to assess, being that there is demand already created by multiple other airlines serving the popular route – the challenge is competing with them.
The question then becomes, can Finnair’s marketing department make a compelling enough argument that the 12,000 or so Aussies visiting Finland should start their journey with AY, and that those travelling to Bangkok should perhaps choose the European carrier rather the multiple other options?
If I were to put money on it (and I am in no way a gambler), I would suggest Finnair will be around in the local market for some time and may even push one or two others to enter the fray.
They’ve got a little less than a year to build the hype.
In other news…
Written by Jo-Anne Hui-Miller
We sent out a couple of breakers this week, including the launch of Luxury Escapes’ and Maldivian’s first ever direct flight from Melbourne.
Available to just Luxury Escapes customers, it marks the first time Australian travellers will have a regular scheduled commercial service to the island.
Fiji Airways also released news this week of a direct route between the Gold Coast and Nadi International Airport, launching in June next year.
The team sent another breaker announcing TravelManagers’ new corporate brand, Corporate Travel Specialists, which will offer an extensive suite of corporate-focused resources.
These include a new website, marketing collateral, corporate airfares, hotel and car hire programs, as well as administrative support from a Corporate Operations Executive and business support from a dedicated corporate BDM.
Meanwhile, we spoke to a few travel agency owners about their thoughts on last week’s announcement of the US Government’s proposal to probe Australian travellers’ social media histories before entry.
“Unfortunately, negativity regarding privacy and leadership is causing many travellers to second- guess their choices in travelling to the States, and a lot of this is through peer and media fear mongering,” said itravel Carlingford owner Emily Todorovski.
However, Complex Travel Group founder Mark Trim observed that in his client base, he expects a short-term drop in sentiment, eventually followed by a period of acceptance.
Speaking of the US, new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that the country is still the fourth-largest outbound market for Aussie travellers, although it was also the only market to see a year-on-year downturn in the top four, with Indonesia, New Zealand and Japan all eclipsing Oct 2024 by significant margins.
Meanwhile, Helloworld signed a new three-year deal with Qantas, which the agency believes will be worth around $1.5 billion in TTV over the next three years.
“While there’s been much speculation over the last few years about cuts in agent commission, we’ve always enjoyed a very positive relationship with Qantas, and this new deal clearly identifies the strategic importance of the agency networks in ANZ,” Helloworld CEO Andrew Burnes said.
In terms of people moves, Flight Centre Travel Group has appointed Clinton Hearne as the Executive General Manager of its new World360 Rewards Program, while Hurtigruten welcomed two new key account managers for the Asia-Pacific region – Lauren Zischke and Rebecca Setchel.
At Swan Hellenic, former HX Expeditions Key Account Manager Kirsty Fruin joined the team as Sales Director for Australia and New Zealand, the Association of Travel Management Companies welcomed on board David Goldman as its new Chairperson, and TasPorts CEO Anthony Donald will be stepping down next year.
Lastly, if you’re looking for some leisurely reading over the weekend, check out our annual Year in Review special report, a look back at some of the most pivotal moments that shaped the travel industry in 2025. Click HERE.
