Airport, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Tourism, Transport

"Finnair is looking into moving the morning flight to a slightly later time and the evening return flight from Helsinki to a slightly earlier time so that all passengers on connecting flights would be able to make it," Klaas told the regional Tartu Postimees. "It's less complicated with morning flights. If at present, the flight departs at 5:20 a.m. and will be departing 20-30 minutes later in the future, the passengers will definitely benefit from it, provided that they are also able to make it to their connecting flight. The same goes for returning 30 minutes earlier in the evening. Finnair is prepared to make the flight schedule more convenient."

More departures during daytime will also be added on the route between Tartu and Helsinki in the summer of 2021 at the earliest.

"Finnair representatives were pleased that the Tartu route is doing well and acknowledged that more departures, particularly during the day, are needed," Klaas said, adding that it has yet to be decided if flight frequency should be increased by one flight per day. "We are coordinating our schedules -- our requests and their options in relation to connecting flights to Europe, over the Atlantic or to Asia on certain days."

"Our message was very clear that Tartu needs departures during the day that our present and future tourists would find convenient, particularly as we are preparing to be the [European] Capital of Culture. Current departures are primarily for business travelers," he said.

The mayor noted that it has yet to be determined if the city will incur any additional expenditure in relation to the additional departures. No progress has been made at this time with launching new air routes from Tartu.