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Finnair has confirmed that it plans to add more flights to a number of its international destinations in 2025 and four of those destinations are cities in the United States. Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle will all be getting more flights from Helsinki than were originally scheduled as the airline looks to feed more passengers into the American Airlines domestic network.
Finnair boosts US routes
Chicago
Originally, Finnair’s summer season schedule showed the airline operating 5 flights per week between Helsinki and Chicago, but following the recent schedule update, Finnair now appears to be offering a daily service from 31 March 2025 onwards with the following flight timings:
AY9 HEL 16:00 – 17:25 ORD (Daily)
AY10 ORD 21:30 – 14:15+1 day HEL (Daily)
This route will be operated by a Finnair Airbus A330-300.
Dallas/Fort Worth
From 30 March 2025, Finnair will increase the number of flights on its DFW route from 5 to 7 per week and as if that wasn’t enough, the airline will also increase the frequencies on this route from 7 to 11 per week between 1 May and 5 September 2025.
This is what the schedule looks like when the route is being operated 11x/week:
AY19 HEL 12:35 – 15:05 DFW (Daily)
AY21 HEL 16:50 – 19:20 DFW (Mon, Wed, Thu & Fri)
AY20 DFW 16:50 – 10:45+1 day HEL (Daily)
AY22 DFW 21:05 – 15:00+1 day HEL (Mon, Wed, Thu & Fri)
This route will be operated by a Finnair Airbus A350-900. Originally, an A330-300 was down to fly between Helsinki and Dallas/Fort Worth for summer 2025.
Related reading: American Airlines Flagship Lounge at Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) review
Los Angeles
Finnair’s summer season schedule originally showed the flag carrier operating just 3 flights per week between Helsinki and Los Angeles. Now, however, the schedule from 1 April 2025 onwards shows this route being operated 5x/week with the following timings:
AY1 HEL 16:00 – 17:05 LAX (Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat & Sun)
AY2 LAX 18:45 – 15:20+1 day HEL (Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat & Sun)
This route will be operated by a Finnair Airbus A350-900.
Seattle
Last but not least, we come to Finnair’s route between Helsinki and Seattle.
Originally, the summer 2025 season schedule showed this route being operated 3x/week, but between 5 May and 20 August 2025 (peak summer), Finnair is increasing the number of weekly flights to 5.
Here’s what the schedule looks like in May next year:
AY33 HEL 16:40 – 16:00 SEA (Mon, Wed, Thu, Sat & Sun)
AY34 SEA 17:40 – 12:55+1 day HEL (Mon, Wed, Thu, Sat & Sun)
This route will be operated by a mix of A350-900 and A330-300 aircraft.
[HT: AeroRoutes]
Award availability
The good news here is that the addition of more flights appears to have made Business Class award availability a lot easier to find on a number of these routes with USA – Helsinki awards available from 57,500 AAdvantage Miles + just $5.60 in taxes.
Here, for example is what Business Class award availability looks like between LA and Helsinki in August:
Here’s what Business Class award availability looks like between Seattle and Helsinki in July:
And here’s what Business Class award availability looks like for travel between Chicago and Helsinki in September 2025:
Given how hard it can be to use AAdvantage Miles on transatlantic routes without having to spend way more miles than we’d like to, these routes to Helsinki look like they offer a great way to get to Europe in comfort and without breaking the mileage bank.
Bottom line
Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle will now all be getting more Finnair flights from Helsinki in Summer 2025 and based on the award searches that we’ve had time to carry out, it looks like all of these routes currently show a lot of Business Class award availability at levels that look very enticing.
But who wants to go to Helsinki? American could add real value with Finnair (and Jordanian, and Etihad) if they allowed redemptions between North America and Asia . . . AA is unique in not allowing ANY awards from the Americas to Asia on ANY route that crosses the Atlantic even when it’s fewer miles than crossing the Pacific, making it very difficult or impossible to redeem awards to Asia on AA’s partners . . . which have notably weaker route networks than they had when One World was conceived, CX, JL, and particularly MH being shadows of their former selves.
You could use Helsinki as a gateway to a wide variety of other European cities (fly business class to/from Helsinki and nest one or more cheaper intra-European flights between your transatlantic flights).
@Ziggy I guess, but sort of out of the way. Would’ve been handy for getting to Russia if that were still a thing.