Finnair prepared for Russian airspace to stay closed for more than a decade

Finnair is gearing up for a lengthy closure of Russian airspace to western airline flights, a fact that has forced it to pivot and embrace new commercial strategies for survival. Those commercial changes include adjusting the Helsinki-based Oneworld alliance carrier’s route map to offer more flights to the Middle East and India rather than East Asia, cutting costs, and shrinking its fleet including by sub-leasing aircraft to other airlines. It is that latter strategy, which includes wet-leasing two Airbus A330s and the crews operating them to Qantas Airways, that shows just how long Finnair’s management expects the Russian airspace closure to persist. “The wet leases to Qantas are an example of us maintaining the option of Russian airspace at some point of time in next years be that five years or 10 years or something more, opening,” Finnair CEO Topi Manner said during an investor event Friday. “Then we would be having the possibility to call back those aircraft and start flying with those to Asia again.” What’s key in that statement is not that Finnair is keeping its strategic options open — one would expect no less from a major global airline — but that its leadership believes Russian airspace could stay closed for “five years or 10 years or something more.” A decade is more than the lifetime of some airlines. And it’s a period long enough to see sizable shifts in share and major players. As significant as it is to hear Finnair’s CEO say Russian airspace could be closed for a decade, it does not appear to be a fringe view. Air France-KLM in September ordered up to 90 Airbus A350-1000s for its future longhaul fleet in a deal that was reported to be driven in large part by additional range considerations owing to the closure of Russian airspace. Aircraft are typically a quarter-century investment for airlines.<br/>