Finland’s new entry model opens up the Nordic country for leisure travelers: travelers from EU and Schengen countries can enter Finland freely as of 12 July without any additional health safety measures when they are fully vaccinated or meet any other of the following requirements:
- They have had a Covid-19 infection before.
- They are born in 2006 or later.
- They come from a country with low virus incidence, including in the government's list of low-risk areas.
Those with only one vaccination dose are instructed to take a Covid-19 test earliest 72 hours after arrival to Finland, and those without any vaccinations are required in addition to have a negative test result before departure to Finland or a test on arrival.
In line with this new model, Finnair will as of 12 July discontinue its requirement for customers to present Covid-19 certificates before boarding flights to Finland, the airline said in a statement.
“With the new legislation, the requirements for entry are checked on arrival, so our customers do not need to show their certificates to Finnair customer service agent at the check-in, when their destination is Finland”, says Jaakko Schildt, Finnair Chief Operating Officer. “We continue to check the documents for those transiting to an international flight at Helsinki, per authority requirements.”
“The health and safety of our customers is a key priority for us, and we continue to have comprehensive measures in place on our flights to ensure safe travel. These include, among others, the obligation to wear a mask for the duration of the flight”, Schildt says.
Interim period
The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) recommended earlier this year that all airlines with flights to Finland require their customers to show either a negative test result, a certificate of recovery, or a vaccination certificate, and Finnair has been the only airline flying to Finland who has adhered to this recommendation.
With the discontinuation of this practice, Finnair does not have any requirements of its own regarding coronavirus certificates.
However, the Finnish flag carrier says that during the interim period of 12-25 July Finnair will "check that customers traveling to Finland meet the Finnish entry requirements, when they depart from a country that is outside the group of normalised border traffic, as internal border control continues and leisure traffic is not yet allowed from all EU and Schengen countries during the interim period."
