LONDON – Following a two-year absence from the service, Finnish flag carrier Finnair has relaunched its flights from the Finnish capital of Helsinki to the Israeli city of Eilat.

From Europe to Israel

Since its shutting down in 2020, Finnair (AY) has now restarted its weekly services to the Israeli city Eilat, flying non-stop from Helsinki Vantaa Airport (HEL) to Eilat’s Ramon Int’l Airport (ETM).

Finnair finds itself as one of the first airlines in Europe to fly to Eilat this year, and the first flight received a warm welcome into Ramon Airport (ETM) on October 18.

The first flight was operated by an Airbus A321 registered OH-LZN and took just under five hours from start to end.

Customers on this service can fly with Finnair until the end of March 2023, expanding the airline’s winter sun destination choices.

Schedules for the service

The Helsinki-Eilat service is set to depart Helsinki at 08.10 local time, arriving at 13.10 local time.

As for the return flights, they will depart for Helsinki at 14.05 local time, landing back in Helsinki at 19.05 local time.

As for the time of the week, the service will run every Tuesday and is not the only Israel route the carrier has, as it operates three times weekly to Tel Aviv, Israel (TLV), giving customers a variety of choices to where they want to go.

Return flights from Helsinki (HEL) is starting at 332 Euro in Economy, including all taxes and charges.

Statements

Finnair Chief Executive Officer, Ole Orvér, gave a comment on the re-launch, saying:- “We are excited to return to Eilat and strengthen our position as the leading airline between Finland and Israel.”

“We know our customers will be excited by the return of this route, which is important to us as we rebuild our network and offer a great choice of destinations for winter sunseekers.”

New partnership

Eilat is not the newest route of the Finnair route network this year, as a recent signing for a partnership deal with Qatar Airways (QR), whom they are also in the oneworld alliance with, also contained the announcement of Finnair launching direct flights to Doha, Qatar (DOH), from three capital hubs.

The capital hubs in question are Stockholm, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark. From there, Finnair will operate their Airbus A330-300 aircraft, of which they have eight.

Due to the variety in configurations of the aircraft type, Finnair also said they would be flown with their new long-haul cabin, which was introduced not so long ago.

Overall

It appears Finnair is continuing to expand its services after the well-known Covid-19 pandemic, as is the case with the majority of airlines too.

However, it is a great sign, giving the relaunch being a sign of demand and travel lust amongst Finnair customers and travelers in general.

Though it’s a one-time-a-week service, the possibility of the route getting more frequencies weekly is something that doesn’t seem totally blocked out.

However, the service acts as a part of their winter schedule currently, with flights ending again in March of next year.