Why Finnair chose Melbourne for its first Australian route

Australians will soon have a new way to fly to Europe, with Finnair launching daily flights between Melbourne and Helsinki from 26 October, 2026.

It’s an unexpected but welcome local debut for the Oneworld member, which says Australia is already well established as the largest market it doesn’t fly to.

Singapore and Hong Kong are the most popular destinations for Australians to connect onto a Finnair flight to Helsinki, Finnair’s regional vice-president Pasi Kuusisto tells Executive Traveller.

“We actually use all our Asian gateways to fly Australians to Europe, also via Tokyo and Bangkok” – with the Thai capital to become the stopover for the Melbourne-Helsinki flights.

“Of course, if you want to break the long way from Australia to Europe, it’s good to take a couple of days between in Asia.”

Kuusisto says there are many reasons Melbourne won out over Sydney when it came to flying the Finnair flag, including that it’s a city where the airline “sees the most potential, based on our analysis and evaluations.”

“Melbourne is not only a popular holiday destination for Europeans, but also home to a large European diaspora, foreign students, and expatriates – making this route an attractive choice for these customer segments as well.”

A new option for Melbourne-Bangkok

Also factoring into this decision is that Finnair will also be able to sell the Melbourne-Bangkok and Bangkok-Melbourne flights on their own, in competition with Thai Airways and Jetstar – whereas Sydney would see Finnair going up against Oneworld partner and dominant carrier Qantas.

“We think that the new route will be a good fit both for Australians or Europeans flying between Australia and Europe, but also with point-to-point traffic between Melbourne and Bangkok,”

Kuusisto says, forecasting “a healthy split” between the two.

And while Finns have a reputation for being cautious, the airline will launch into Melbourne with daily flights, rather than a more conventional starter strategy of 3-4 flights per week.

“We want to be consistent, and we of course want to offer a daily gateway to our customers,” Kuusisto tells Executive Traveller.

“The everyday schedule also works with the connections better and supports our strong network connectivity, so we can offer more than ninety destinations in Europe on a daily basis.”

From Helsinki to the rest of Europe

“Helsinki Airport is under one roof, we only have one terminal, and the fastest connections are less than an hour,” Kuusisto adds, talking up the appeal of Helsinki over larger and more established transit hubs.

“It’s really convenient for passengers, and hassle-free compared to some other major airports.”

“We offer good connections to Central Europe and we even see a lot of passengers fly via Helsinki to UK or Southern Europe,” Kuusisto says, and “a lot of people also want to do a stopover in Helsinki or visit Finnish Lapland.”

“Australians tend to travel a longer time, so they take two or three weeks or even four weeks and experience several cities and destination at the same time.”

While declining to comment on speculation that Finnair received hefty financial support from Victoria’s state government to underwrite the route, Kuusisto says “there’s a lot of things that are evaluated when we start new routes.”

A Melbourne Airport spokesperson told Executive Traveller it “works closely with the state government and Visit Victoria to attract and support new airlines and services to Melbourne.”

“A daily international flight to Melbourne delivers on average more than $190 million to the Victorian economy and supports around 2,000 jobs.”