Finnair (AY, Helsinki Vantaa) has revealed that it will initiate talks with its cabin crew in Finland “to subcontract inflight service on routes to/from Thailand and the US” as it seeks further cost cuts and restore profitability. If realised, the plan could result in the loss of up to 450 jobs.

The majority state-owned airline said on November 16 that the possible subcontracting plan, which would “reduce unit costs and strengthen unit revenues,” would be implemented by the end of 2023. Its Finnish cabin crew workforce currently numbers 1,750.

The negotiations are set to start on November 23 and will last at least six weeks, with services to be subcontracted to its “partners” by the end of 2023.

It did not say who the outsourcing partners are likely to be, but it said that the cabin service for its Singapore Changi, Hong Kong International, and India routes as well as its services linking both Copenhagen Kastrup and Stockholm Arlanda with Doha Hamad International “are provided by Finnair’s partners already.”

“Finnair made considerable losses during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the closure of Russian airspace significantly impacts Finnair’s ability to generate profit,” the news release explained.

The airline’s primary target, it said, has been to find solutions to cut unit costs together with its employees, and during the autumn it discussed the possibility of achieving savings by changing employment terms. For cabin crew, it proposed changes for example to crew utilisation efficiency, layover hotel rules, and additional pay-per-hour rules for longer flights as the airspace closure had made flight times to Asia considerably longer.

Results were reached with some employees, but “a solution was not found with the cabin crew in Finland. In this situation, Finnair must seek savings through alternative measures.”

Finnair CEO Topi Manner stressed: “Our target continues to be to find a savings solution together with our cabin crew. We now need a genuine will from the negotiators to find solutions that would allow us to continue inflight service with our own crew, and avoid redundancies. Discussion on alternative solutions is a vitally important part of the change negotiations process.”

Finnish Cabin Crew Association chief Marianne Arteva told the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat: “That Finnair is set to reduce its cabin crew is pretty shocking news overall because we’ve struggled with staff sufficiency throughout the summer and into autumn.”

According to the ch-aviation capacities module, Finnair currently operates two routes to Thailand, 11x weekly from Helsinki Vantaa to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi and 1x weekly to Phuket. To the United States, it flies to 7x weekly to New York JFK, 4x weekly to Dallas/Fort Worth, and 3x weekly to Los Angeles International.

In its traffic performance stats for October, released on November 8, Finnair said that the impact of the pandemic, including strict travel restrictions imposed by some countries, still affects its passenger figures, particularly for Asia. The Russian airspace closure resulted in further route and frequency cancellations in Asian traffic, but “thanks to robust demand for cargo, Finnair continued operating to most of its Asian destinations despite the longer routings.”