Pilot strike: Finnair to ground all scheduled domestic, international flights from November 16, 2009

Finnair, the flag-carrier airline of Finland ands also the country’s biggest carrier, has announced that it will ground all its scheduled domestic and international flights from November 16, 2009, in view of the planned strike by pilots.

About 800 pilots of Finnair, belonging to the Finnish Airline Pilots Association, have announced that they will start striking work from November 16, 2009, after the pilots rejected a labour contract proposed by the Finnish government’s mediator.

Finnair and its pilots have been holding unsuccessful negotiations for many months now over the pilots’ pay and working conditions.

The pilots’ strike is feared to affect about 20,000 passengers of Finnair on the first day.

In a statement, Finnair, which operates about 200 flights daily, said it is most likely to cancel all scheduled, long-haul European flights departing from Helsinki on November 15 and returning on November 16.

However, the carrier said it plans to fly all its leisure flights normally, notwithstanding the pilots’ strike, and that it its code-share partners will operate all their services to and from Helsinki.

In a press release, Kristian Rintala, chairman of the Finnish Airline Pilots Association, said the leaders of the union had “unanimously” rejected the proposals by the Finnish government since the proposals did not put forward any answers to the chief point of disagreement – that is, use of employees from outside Finnair.

Rintala repeated the union’s demand that the planes of Finnair should be flown only by the pilots of the company.

However, a spokesman of Finnair denied the allegation that the airline intended to use the service of pilots from outside the company. He told reporters that Finnair needs to use non-company employees “in certain market conditions,” but stressed that the company “has no plans to let employees from outside into the cockpits of Finnair planes.”

Finnair, headquartered in Vantaa, Finland, and having its main hub at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, has been struggling financially because of declining demand for air travel, over-capacity as well as tough competition from low-cost carriers.

The other day, Finnair had warned of more flight cutbacks in the winter of 2009, in addition to having reduced capacity by 12% in October 2009.

The company had reported, in October 2009, that its losses had increased by 15% – to C21 million ($31 million) – in the third quarter of 2009. During the period, sales dropped by 22%.

Finnair had also cautioned that it will take a long time for the airline to get out of the red.

In the statement, Finnair said it will start statutory negotiations with all of its 9,000 employees over implementing more measures to cut costs – with most of the reductions concerning personnel-related costs.

Finnair, which is 56% owned by the government of Finland, operates services to 50 destinations and has a fleet strength of 63 aircraft.

The airline said it flew 8.3 million passengers in 2008 – down by 4% from 2007.