Finnish labour unions have called eight separate 24-hour strikes between 4 and 13 December, escalating a pay and rostering dispute that has dogged the country’s logistics and aviation sectors for months. The Finnish Air Line Pilots’ Association (SLL) will walk out on 9 and 13 December alongside port and postal workers, prompting Finnair to pre-emptively cancel about 300 flights and warn 39,000 travellers of disruption.
Finnair began re-booking passengers on 30 November, offering refunds or alternative routings. Travel-management companies are scrambling to secure scarce seats on SAS, airBaltic and Norwegian, while advising domestic travellers to consider rail options on routes such as Helsinki–Tampere. Although EU261 duty of care applies, compensation payments may be excluded because strikes count as an ‘extraordinary circumstance’.
![Series of one-day strikes to hit Finland’s transport and logistics sector; 300 Finnair flights already cancelled]()
Beyond aviation, the one-day walk-outs will shut Vuosaari Harbour container operations and delay postal deliveries, potentially affecting spare-parts logistics and e-commerce fulfilment during the crucial pre-Christmas period. Employers with time-critical shipments or household-goods removals should expect clearance backlogs of several days.
Negotiations, mediated by Finland’s National Conciliator, broke down last week. If no settlement is reached, unions have threatened multi-day stoppages in January—traditionally Lapland’s peak tourist season—raising the stakes for Finland’s wider mobility ecosystem.
Finnair began re-booking passengers on 30 November, offering refunds or alternative routings. Travel-management companies are scrambling to secure scarce seats on SAS, airBaltic and Norwegian, while advising domestic travellers to consider rail options on routes such as Helsinki–Tampere. Although EU261 duty of care applies, compensation payments may be excluded because strikes count as an ‘extraordinary circumstance’.
Beyond aviation, the one-day walk-outs will shut Vuosaari Harbour container operations and delay postal deliveries, potentially affecting spare-parts logistics and e-commerce fulfilment during the crucial pre-Christmas period. Employers with time-critical shipments or household-goods removals should expect clearance backlogs of several days.
Negotiations, mediated by Finland’s National Conciliator, broke down last week. If no settlement is reached, unions have threatened multi-day stoppages in January—traditionally Lapland’s peak tourist season—raising the stakes for Finland’s wider mobility ecosystem.
