The tour operators have not yet canceled their trips. At Finnair, more than 30,000 passengers on strike days have changed their travel plans.
Tour operators are expecting to receive more information at the beginning of the week about how the two-day strike in air traffic that starts on Thursday of next week will affect air traffic.
Matkatoimisto Tui Finland's communications manager Laura Aaltonen the effects of the strike are currently unclear. He predicts to STT that the effects will be known in more detail in the beginning of the week.
“Currently, we have informed customers that we will contact them directly if there are any changes to their flights.”
JHL members working at Finavia, which manages the airports, and its subsidiary Airpro are participating in the strike.
Support Finland organized holiday flights departed to destinations on Thursday and Friday as normal, and flights planned for strike days have not been canceled either. The trips scheduled for the strike days are largely sold out, but some of the trips are still on sale.
According to Aaltonen, the customers have been in contact to some extent about the effects of the planned strike on their trip. People were most worried about the departure flight to the destination and not so much the delay of the return flight.
“Most people want to go there on vacation when they look out the window.”
Neither Tjäreborg has not yet canceled its trips on strike days. The starting point is to get people going, says the country manager Jessica Virtanen from Tjäreborg.
“This will definitely be resolved at the beginning of the week, and after that we will be in contact with the customers.”
Tjäreborg has already contacted some of the self-employed travelers and tried to reschedule their flights. Tjäreborg has also been in contact with customers whose travel may be affected by the strike by text message.
According to Virtanen, the sale of strike days has not been officially stopped, but charter flights have been sold out.
If the return flight is delayed due to a strike, the travel agency will take care of the accommodation. According to Virtanen, the costs arising from the passengers' meals are handled in different ways depending on the accommodation.
“There can be different solutions on how to handle the matter. Some may live in hotels with food service and others may not. The situations can be very different.”
Virtanen says that customers have not postponed their package tours much because of the threat of a strike.
Carrier Finnair has not yet canceled its flights due to the strike, but its effects on the company's flight operations will be significant, says the director of communications Days Tallqvist from Finnair.
He believes that the company will be able to communicate to customers about the effects of the strike on flights from the beginning of the week. Finnair has already proactively offered customers the opportunity to move their flights away from strike days. About half of the customers on strike days have taken advantage of the opportunity to change their travel plan.
“More than 30,000 customers have already changed their travel plans.”
According to Tallqvist, the sale of flights scheduled for the strike days was stopped as soon as the information about the strike came out.
Flights can also be purchased from various booking websites, in which case the travel agency is responsible for the tickets it sells, according to Finnair's communication. Finnair has informed travel agencies that one change can be made to the tickets in question free of charge. In this case, the customer must contact the travel agency directly.
However, Finnair's change conditions do not apply to flights where, for example, the connecting flight of the reservation takes place with another airline.
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