Finnair announced a large capacity increase to various destinations across the United States and Asia. The carrier is expecting a large surge in demand for next summer and, as such, will be increasing its overall capacity by an impressive 46%.

Increased Frequencies

Finnair will not add new destinations but will increase its frequency with various American and Asian destinations next summer.

As specified in its official press release, the “Summer of 2025” will run from March 30th to October 25th. This period does not technically start or end in the summer, but that is what Finnair published.

Flights will be added to four destinations in the United States, two in Japan and one in China. This is the full list of cities that will see frequency increases from Helsinki (HEL):

• Chicago (ORD): Daily Service (up from 5x weekly)
• Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW): 11x weekly (up from 6x weekly)
• Los Angeles (LAX): 5x weekly (up from 3x weekly)
• Seattle (SEA): 5x weekly (up from 3x weekly)
• Nagoya, Japan (NGO): 4x weekly (up from 3x weekly)
• Osaka Kansai, Japan (KIX): Daily Service
• Shanghai Pudong, China (PVG): 4x weekly (up from 3x weekly)

New York (JFK) is Finnair’s only American destination and will not receive frequent increases. That route will maintain daily service through the Summer of 2025.

Christine Rovelli, Finnair’s Chief Revenue Officer, commented on the carrier’s capacity growth:

“Increasing our capacity to the United States brings our customers excellent connectivity to North America and beyond.

Customers can connect via Dallas and Chicago to our partner American Airlines’ extensive network in North and South America. At the same time, Seattle and Los Angeles offer a gateway to other parts of the West Coast and Hawaii through our partners American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.”

Growth Potential

Dallas and Chicago are two massive connecting hubs for American Airlines, which operates large regional and domestic networks from both. Finnair will depend highly on the carrier’s extensive networks from both hubs to feed its flights.

Finnair launched service to Dallas/Fort Worth in 2022, quickly becoming the airline’s highest capacity gateway in the United States. This is largely thanks to DFW being America’s biggest hub.

Alaska Airlines, a new One World member and partner, will also help feed and receive passengers from Finnair’s increased services to LAX and Seattle. The airline operates a massive network around the West Coast, especially to Hawaii, w which Finnair noticed.

Movofg to Asia, Osaka will host the World Expo in 2025. Finnair's daily service will assist those wanting to visit the city for that occasion. Nagoya and Osaka also have sizable operations from OneWorld partner Japan Airlines. With this, Finnair passengers can connect to JAL flights elsewhere in Japan.

All of these routes will be operated by either Airbus A330-300s or A350-900s. These aircraft have been refurbished with Finnair’s newest “non-reclining" Business Class product, which has garnered many positive reviews.

Overall, this is very exciting news from Finnair, a carrier that especially struggled with its Asian network following the closure of Russian airspace. The airline hopes its increased frequencies will make it a competitive choice for those visiting Europe, Asia, the United States, and beyond.