AKT accuses Finnair of threatening staff

AKT accused Finnair on Saturday of poor management, human resources policy and the use of redundancies to threaten employees in connection with its plan to subcontract in-flight services on its flights to and from Thailand and the United States.

According to Ismo Kokko, chairperson of AKT, Finnair is openly extorting its own employees to be able to slash wages.

The airline promised to send notification of cancellations to the contact details provided with the booking, and will offer passengers affected by the cancellations re-routing options to their final destination. Passengers can check the status of their flight on the airline's website.

"We are deeply sorry for the concern and inconvenience this strike is causing our customers, and we will do our best to reroute customers as soon as possible," said Jaakko Schmidt, chief operating officer at Finnair.

It is sad that the labour union has chosen the path of an illegal strike instead of negotiations. We have discussed savings possibilities with the unions throughout the autumn, but unfortunately we have not been able to achieve a result with the cabin crew. He said that we still hope to find solutions together.

Finnair expects traffic to return to normal during the course of the afternoon. Individual flights can be affected later because of the non-operation of return flights for cancelled long-haul flights.