In recent years, much of Finnair’s growth strategy centred around the Asian and Chinese markets. However, with the advantages of geography, meterological conditions notwithstanding, the airline also developed a solid presence in North America, with services to New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami.

Now, capitalising on this presence, Finnair has announced it will now begin operation on a fifth North American route. On 31 March 2019, the airline will start to fly three times a week to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). In addition, the Los Angeles service will be Finnair’s first US route to be regularly operated with the new Airbus A350 aircraft.

Finnair will also be updating its existing US offering with seasonal additions to its summer schedules for San Francisco and Chicago, which kick off in April 2019. From May a fourth flight will be added for San Francisco.

These changes, along with the new LAX coverage, means Finn Air will operate flights to California every day of the week in summer.

“We are very happy to expand our North American network and fly a new route to Los Angeles with our Airbus A350,” said Juha Järvinen, chief commercial officer at Finnair.

“We opened our route to San Francisco two years ago with tremendous success, proving that California and the West Coast are very popular with our customers. We are confident that this new route to Los Angeles will garner the same level of interest moving forward.”

The new route will be operated within the Atlantic joint business between Finnair, American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia. Currently, the four airlines operate over 100 daily return flights between Europe and North America.