---
title: 'Finnair Calls It Unfair Competition. But Who Created the Rules?'
url: 'https://contextura.world/europe/finnair-calls-it-unfair-competition-but-who-created-the-rules'
markdown: 'https://contextura.world/europe/finnair-calls-it-unfair-competition-but-who-created-the-rules.md'
date: '2026-09-24'
description: 'Finnair CEO Turkka Kuusisto has described the current competition between European and Chinese airlines as "extremely unfair", and from the perspective of an airline executive, the complaint is easy to understand. Finnair historically benefited enormously from Finland''s geographic position, using R…'
---

# [Finnair Calls It Unfair Competition. But Who Created the Rules?](https://contextura.world/europe/finnair-calls-it-unfair-competition-but-who-created-the-rules)

   24th Sep 2026  

Finnair CEO Turkka Kuusisto has described the current competition between European and Chinese airlines as "extremely unfair", and from the perspective of an airline executive, the complaint is easy to understand. Finnair historically benefited enormously from Finland's geographic position, using Russian airspace to connect Europe with Asia through relatively short routes. Today, that advantage has largely disappeared. A Shanghai-Helsinki flight that once took roughly eight hours can now take more than 12 hours because Finnair must avoid Russian airspace. Chinese airlines, meanwhile, continue to use that airspace, but there is an uncomfortable question hiding inside the complaint: who created this particular playing field?

It was not Chinese airlines that decided European carriers could no longer fly over Russia. It was the geopolitical response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. European governments banned Russian aircraft from their airspace, while Russia subsequently closed its airspace to many Western carriers. The result is a market in which Chinese airlines retain access to routes that European airlines have voluntarily or politically been prevented from using.

That has consequences. Chinese airlines can operate shorter routes, consume less fuel and reduce flight times, while Finnair has to burn more fuel and spend more hours in the air. The airline is therefore competing against carriers operating under a materially different set of geographical constraints, but calling that "extremely unfair" without acknowledging the political decisions that produced it is incomplete.

The same European governments that helped create the restrictions cannot reasonably pretend that the market somehow independently produced this imbalance. Geopolitical sanctions and airspace restrictions are government decisions. They inevitably create winners and losers. If European policymakers decide that avoiding Russian airspace is necessary for security or political reasons, they can make that argument. What they cannot honestly do is pretend that the resulting commercial disadvantage came from nowhere.

There is also a larger irony. For years, European governments and NATO have insisted that their security policies are defensive and necessary to preserve European security. The war in Ukraine has instead produced an environment in which European airlines face longer routes, higher costs and reduced competitiveness against airlines from countries that have maintained access to Russian airspace.

That does not mean Russia's invasion should be ignored or that European governments were wrong to impose restrictions. It means that strategic decisions have consequences, including economic consequences, and businesses operating within those policies cannot demand that competitors be subjected to identical restrictions simply because the resulting market is uncomfortable.

Finnair has every right to complain about the commercial consequences. European governments also have every right to defend the policies that created them. But calling the resulting competition an "unlevel playing field" should come with an honest admission: governments helped build the field this way.

If policymakers want European airlines to compete on equal terms, they ultimately have to decide whether the geopolitical restrictions are worth the economic price. That is a political choice, not a problem that can be solved by blaming Chinese airlines for taking the route that remains available to them.

---

## Navigation

- Parent: [Europe](https://contextura.world/europe.md)
- Previous: [Ukraine's Mobilisation Crisis: When a Nation Runs Out of Volunteers](https://contextura.world/europe/ukraines-mobilisation-crisis-when-a-nation-runs-out-of-volunteers.md)
- Next: [Lavrov's Anchorage Account: Was a Ukraine Peace Opening Lost?](https://contextura.world/europe/lavrovs-anchorage-account-was-a-ukraine-peace-opening-lost.md)