Finnair has just announced plans to launch regularly scheduled flights to Australia, which wasn’t exactly on my new airline route bingo card!
Finnair launching flights to Melbourne, Australia
As of October 26, 2026, Finnair plans to launch daily, year-round flights to Australia. Specifically, the airline plans to fly from Helsinki (HEL) to Melbourne (MEL) via Bangkok (BKK). The schedule will be as follows:
AY145 Helsinki to Bangkok departing 12:10AM arriving 4:30PM
AY145 Bangkok to Melbourne departing 6:15PM arriving 7:15AM (+1 day)
AY146 Melbourne to Bangkok departing 3:35PM arriving 8:45PM
AY146 Bangkok to Helsinki departing 10:30PM arriving 6:05AM (+1 day)
The segment between Helsinki and Bangkok covers a distance of 4,916 miles, and is blocked at 11hr20min eastbound and 12hr35min westbound. Meanwhile the Australia segment covers a distance of 4,546 miles, and is blocked at 9hr to Australia and 9hr10min to Thailand.
Finnair intends to use an Airbus A350-900 for the route, featuring 278 seats. This includes 43 business class seats, 24 premium economy seats, and 211 economy seats.
Each of the segments can be booked individually, meaning that Finnair has fifth freedom rights between Bangkok and Melbourne. Finnair already flies between Helsinki and Bangkok, so this route represents a capacity boost between those two markets (since we’re seeing an extra frequency added), plus an all-new route.
Here’s how Christine Rovelli, Finnair’s Chief Revenue Officer, describes the new route:
“We are very excited to introduce service to a new continent. By connecting Helsinki and Melbourne, two cities on opposite sides of the world, we can offer a truly unique bridge between the northern and southern hemispheres. We expect that this new route will appeal to travellers from Europe heading to Australia, as well as Australians exploring northern Europe and beyond.”
My take on Finnair launching flights to Australia
I’m a but surprised to see Finnair launching flights to Australia in this way. The market between Europe and Australia is super competitive:
- Qantas flies nonstop between Australia and Europe, in addition to fifth freedom flights via Singapore
- Virtually all of the Middle Eastern and Asian carriers compete in carrying passengers between Europe and Australia, with similar efficiencies and flight time to these “direct” flights
- The only European carrier offering such a flight to Australia is British Airways, which flies via Singapore; Turkish Airlines also flies to Australia via Asia, and is sort of a European carrier
Anyway, I suppose that Finnair has decided that this is the best way that it can allocate an aircraft, though I also can’t help but think that the yields for this route won’t be great, and the airline will be forced to just compete on price. Finnair doesn’t really have much of a competitive advantage here, and if anything, is gong up against some really high quality and established airlines.
It’s not that planes in these markets can’t be filled, but I just imagine fares will have to be very low to compete, and that’s not exactly an ideal situation for a flight of this length.
It’s worth acknowledging that Finnair is in the oneworld alliance, so will have some connectivity with Qantas in Australia. However, it’s not like the two airlines have a joint venture, and they’ll be acting as competitors.
Bottom line
As of late October 2026, Finnair will launch a route from Helsinki to Bangkok to Melbourne, using an Airbus A350. This will add more capacity between Helsinki and Bangkok, and it will also add a new fifth freedom service between Asia and Australia. I’m curious to see how this route performs…
What do you make of Finnair’s new Melbourne route?
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