List of low-cost airlines in Finland
Finland’s low-cost flight offer is diverse and comprehensive, and nowadays, with the help of low-cost airlines, you can travel in almost the same way as with full-service airlines. A low-cost airline is an easy and affordable choice, but when using them, you should remember that the price is based on cutting down the services. So you shouldn’t expect free drinks or a free entertainment system on board a low-cost airline.
We gathered all the low-cost airlines operating in Finland in one list. It is not always easy to define which companies are low-cost airlines and which are not. The list includes all airlines that fit the definition in terms of their pricing and service structure.
When comparing the prices of low-cost airlines, you should be careful, because the pricing varies from company to company, and luggage fees and possible fees from additional services are typically added to the amount stated at the beginning. Still, the cheapest way to get there is only a few tens, so the comparison is worth it!
Air Baltic
Latvian Air Baltic, which has strongly increased its route network, is not a true low-cost airline, but its prices are often competitive with low-cost airlines. Air Baltic is a so-called hybrid company – a mixture of a low-cost airline and a traditional airline with a full-service business class concept. The Latvian state-owned company offers flights from Finland to Riga and several other destinations.
Air Baltic flies to Riga from Helsinki, Tampere and Turku airports. In addition, the company has routes from Tampere to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Malaga, Milan, Munich, Nice and Rhodes.
Onward connections enable low-cost flights via Riga to dozens of destinations in Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.
EasyJet
The low-cost airline EasyJet is a British low-cost airline founded in 1995, which is currently one of the largest low-cost airlines in Europe. At the moment, EasyJet’s only route from Finland is the winter season route from Rovaniemi to London Gatwick airport.
Eurowings
Eurowings is a German low-cost airline and a subsidiary of Lufthansa, which was founded in 1993. The company flies to more than a hundred destinations in 50 different countries. Eurowings operates direct flights from Helsinki to Berlin and in the winter season from Rovaniemi and Kittilä to Düsseldorf.
Nordic Regional Airlines
Nordic Regional Airlines, or Norra for short, was previously known as Flybe Finland. The company changed its name after the parent company separated from the airline’s operations in 2015.
Flybe Finland was born in the summer of 2011, when the British company Flybe and Finnair bought the Finnish airline Finncomm Airlines, founded in 1993. Flybe Finland is wholly owned by Flybe Nordic.
Norra is Finnair’s partner, and it operates a significant part of Finnair’s domestic and European traffic.
Norwegian
Norwegian low-cost airline Norwegian flies direct flights from Helsinki to Alicante, Athens, Barcelona, Burgas, Dubrovnik, Gran Canaria, Crete, Copenhagen, Larnaca, London, Malaga, Mallorca, Nice, Oslo, Pisa, Pristina, Rhodes, Rovaniemi, Split, Tenerife, Tivat, Stockholm and Venice. Some routes are only flown in the summer or winter season.
Norwegian has stopped domestic flights from Helsinki to Oulu, Vaasa, Kittilä and Ivalo.
Long-distance routes to the United States and Thailand flown via Stockholm or Oslo with connecting connections have also been discontinued.
According to Norwegian’s current pricing model, the most affordable ticket type does not include a bag to be transported on the luggage rack, but hand luggage must fit under the seat.
Pegasus Airlines
Pegasus Airlines is a Turkish low-cost airline that operates both scheduled and charter flights. The company flies four times a week from Helsinki-Vantaa to Istanbul to Sabiha Gökçen Airport, which is located about an hour’s drive from the city. The price of the cheapest ticket type only includes hand luggage.
Ryanair
The Irish Ryanair is Europe’s largest low-cost airline, which was also the first of its kind in Europe. From Finland, Ryanair flies from Helsinki-Vantaa, Tampere Pirkkala Airport, Lappeenranta and Rovaniemi.
From Helsinki, Ryanair has routes to Alicante, Girona near Barcelona, Charleroi near Brussels, Kaunas, Stansted in London, Bergamo near Milan, Paris, Poznan, Riga, Warsaw, Venice, Vienna and Zadar.
The company operates from Tampere to London Stansted and from Lappeenranta to Bergamo. In the winter season, Ryanair flies from Rovaniemi to Dublin, London Stansted and Brussels to Charleroi airport.
Ryanair’s cheapest ticket type only includes a small piece of hand luggage that must fit under the seat.
SunExpress
The Turkish airline SunExpress started flights from Helsinki-Vantaa to Izmir, Turkey in May 2014. The airline owned by Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines has previously operated charter flights from Finland. Although it is not a low-cost airline in the true sense of the word – for example, luggage is included in the price of the ticket – it is possible to find reasonably priced flights to Turkey through the company.
SunExpress operates from Helsinki to Izmir only in the summer season.
Vueling
The Spanish low-cost airline Vueling opened its first route to Finland by launching flights between Helsinki and Barcelona in May 2013. Vueling operates from Helsinki-Vantaa to Barcelona’s El Prat airport twice a week.
Wizz Air
Hungarian Wizz Air is a well-known low-cost airline in Central Europe that arrived in Finland in 2008. At that time, Wizz Air started flights between Turku and Gdansk in Poland.
Currently, Wizz Air transports passengers from Turku not only to Gdansk but also to Rome.
Low-cost airlines that have closed in Finland
Low-cost airlines make their route decisions purely on economic grounds. Some of the low-cost airlines that operated in Finland have enjoyed themselves in the small northern markets for only a short time and then ended up ceasing their operations in Finland.
Aer Lingus
Aer Lingus is an Irish airline founded in 1936, which switched to the low-cost concept in 2007. In practice, Ireland’s national airline is something between a low-cost airline and a full-service airline. Aer Lingus operated the summer route between Helsinki and Dublin for the last time in 2013.
Air Berlin
Air Berlin was a German airline that operated from Finland to Berlin. The company stopped its flights to Finland due to bankruptcy in October 2017.
Blue1
Blue1 was an airline offering competitive prices, which today operates as a production company for SAS. All the company’s flights are now operated with SAS planes.
Blue Air
Blue Air is a Romanian low-cost airline that started direct flights from Helsinki to Bucharest in 2017. The company suspended all flights indefinitely in 2022.
Buzz
Buzz, a low-cost airline founded by KLM, was the first low-cost airline to operate in Finland, flying between Helsinki and London Stansted in 2000–2002. The route was discontinued due to high costs, and later Ryanair bought the entire company. Under the name Buzz, the company flew its last flights in 2004.
Clickair
Spanish Clickair, which started its operations in 2006, is a low-cost airline that offered cheap flights from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in Finland to Barcelona, Spain. The company ended up stopping flights from Finland during 2008 due to the low occupancy rate. Today, Clickair is part of Vueling.
Estonian Air
The Estonian state airline Estonian Air is not a true low-cost airline, but you can find cheap tickets. Estonian Air had time to operate to Tallinn from Helsinki, Jyväskylä and Joensuu before stopping all flights as unprofitable in 2013.
Germania
The German Germania was an independent low-cost airline operating in the German and Swiss markets. The company operates from Düsseldorf to Kittilä during the winter season. It filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of 2019.
Germanwings
The German Germanwings is a subsidiary of Lufthansa, which operates between Helsinki and Berlin in 2013.
It was not the first time that the company was seen on the Finnish market: Germanwings used to fly from Helsinki to Cologne-Bonn airport, but stopped the flights as unprofitable in 2008.
Monarch
The British airline Monarch operates in Finland from Lapland to Great Britain in the 2017-2018 winter season from Birmingham, London and Manchester to Kittila.
Transavia
The Dutch low-cost airline Transavia entered the Finnish market in 2017 by opening routes from Helsinki to Amsterdam and Munich. Both routes have been discontinued. At the moment, Transavia flies only charter flights to Finland, for example to destinations in Lapland.
V Bird
The Dutch low-cost airline V Bird operated from Helsinki to Niederrhein, near Düsseldorf, Germany in the early 2000s. The company ceased operations in 2005.
What is the operation of low-cost airlines based on?
The idea of low-cost airlines is to offer their customers only the most necessary services related to travel. Thanks to this, the prices of the flights can be calculated as low as possible. All additional services are subject to an additional fee.
Free food and drinks are not served on low-cost flights, but can be purchased separately by each passenger. In addition, tickets for low-cost airlines are almost always only sold online. In this way, considerable savings are achieved in the company’s marketing costs.
Cheap flights are not always cheap flights
Low-cost airlines’ trips are marketed with cheap offers and the ticket price is based on the “fast eats slow” principle. In the pricing of low-cost flights, service fees and baggage fees may also be added.
Policies vary between different airlines, so you should be careful when comparing prices. Sometimes the total price of a cheap flight is even more expensive than with a traditional airline.
In addition to low-cost airlines, you can find cheap plane tickets by carefully comparing the offers of the major companies. Rantapallo’s Flight Search tells you the cheapest flights to your desired destination!
Images: Shutterstock, Air Baltic, Norwegian
Destination information of low-cost airlines updated: March 2, 2023
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