Buoyed by success in Indian sectors, Finnair proposes to start flights from Chennai later this year.
"With the mobile phone giant Nokia setting up its manufacturing facility in Chennai, it is becoming an important destination for Finland," Sakari Romu, vice-president of Finnnair, told IANS here Sunday.
The flag carrier of the Nordic nation is also looking at Bangalore as a possible destination with growth in relations between India and Finnish software companies.
"A good response on our existing sectors has prompted us to add a new destination in India and to increase our flights," Tomu said, referring to the plan to start the sixth Mumbai-Helsinki flight from June.
Several Finish companies like Nokia and elevator major Kone have major expansion plans in India even as Indian software giants like Wipro and Infosys set up bases in Finland.
The load factor on these services is close to 85 per cent, considered remarkable. "We are expecting a large number of Indian visitors to Finland and other Scandinavian countries using Helsinki as a hub to European destinations."
Finnair is the only airlines operating between India and northern Europe and takes the minimum time of six and a half hours to fly between Delhi and Helsinki.
{{/usCountry}}Finnair is the only airlines operating between India and northern Europe and takes the minimum time of six and a half hours to fly between Delhi and Helsinki.
{{/usCountry}}From April 2008, the airline would also provide a connecting flight to New York with just a 35 minutes stopover at Helsinki.
This would add to a total travel time of 17 hours and 10 minutes, which would be next only to non-stop flights to the US that take around 16 hours.
So far the airline operates five flights between Mumbai and Helsinki (six from June 2008) and daily services from Delhi.