Finnair Won’t Rebook Passengers Originating Or Terminating In Doha

Finnair is one of those airlines that have temporarily halted flying to the Gulf from Thursday last week due to the tensions between Iran and Israel.

The pause is now in place until June 30^th, but may be extended if there is no resolution in place or the airline deems it unsafe to operate to Doha due to airspace and other flight path restrictions in place.

You can access Finnair here.

Finnair is obviously rebooking affected passengers to their final destination, as required by EC 261/2004, and there is also a Duty to Care requirement if the new routing causes delays, excess transit, or wait times.

Finnair stated yesterday, before the evening’s events, that they were not rerouting affected passengers through Doha.

What, however, surprised me most, based on what I have seen Finnair passengers having been offered, is that now Finnair won’t rebook passengers who originate from Doha or those whose destination is Doha.

I was in touch with Finnair earlier today and received the following statement from the spokesperson:

We have made a new risk assessment on the use of airspace on Monday, and due to the unstable security situation in the region, have decided not to re-route to or via Doha.

Customers, who cannot be rerouted for this reason may apply for a refund for their original ticket.

Conclusion

I am sure that there are passengers, although most are transit, originating from Doha or whose destination is Doha, and Finnair now refuses to reaccommodate them, which must be contradictory to EC 261/2004.

Obviously, there might be difficulty getting space to or from Doha over the next couple of days when Qatar Airways needs to rebook all its affected passengers after the airspace was closed for seven or eight hours last night, but not offering anything other than a refund?

What probably helps many of those passengers who are on these Finnair flights is that the majority of the seats are likely sold and marketed by Qatar Airways, which will take care of their passengers.

It seems that Qatar Airways has a hard block on most seats, as you cannot even choose them if you are on an AY code on a Finnair flight. I believe there were only four seats to choose from in the entire business cabin when I took this flight from Doha last year.

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