Finnair to launch Direct Flights to Nagoya

Finnair is to launch direct scheduled passenger flights from Helsinki to Nagoya, Japan in June 2006. Nagoya is Finnair's third route destination in Japan and its ninth in Asia. Finnair will fly to Nagoya's brand-new international airport, which opened in March this year, and will operate the flights with a seventh Boeing MD-11 aircraft, which will join the fleet next winter.

"The opening of the Nagoya route is a natural continuation of our Asia strategy. Timetables have been structured to harmonise with our European flights, so that the route has good connections to Finnair's network of around thirty cities in Europe," said COO and EVP, Scheduled Passenger Traffic Henrik Arle.

Next summer, Finnair will fly to Japan a total of ten times a week, five times to Osaka, twice to Tokyo and three times to Nagoya.

Nagoya is the main city of the dynamic economic region of Chubu, which has the combined purchasing power of nearly 20 million people within its service area. Nagoya is also well known for being the headquarters of Toyota and the new route will serve European business travel and cargo traffic directed towards the automotive and electronics manufacturing cluster which has grown up around the car manufacturer. The Nagoya area is Japan's third largest concentration of economic activity after Tokyo and Osaka.

The airport, known by the name Nagoya Chubu Centrair Airport, has been built on a new man-made island close to the centre of Nagoya. It is Japan's most modern international airport and, in contrast with other international airports, offers fast connecting flights from the same terminal to more than 20 cities in different parts of Japan.

Among the sights in the dynamic and friendly city of Nagoya is a 17th century Shogun castle. Nagoya is also famous for Japanese ceramics, to which the Noritake Garden, built on the site of a former ceramics factory, provides a good introduction. Outside the city lies the Aichi Expo 2005 World Exposition as well as numerous rural onsen spas, the best of which are to be found in old mountain villages within a magnificent landscape. The Shima area itself is renowned for its beautiful coastline and many picturesque fishing villages.

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