“As Key Account and Business Development Manager, I prepare business cases for airlines to help them start new routes, fly more routes or upgrade aircraft size on existing routes from Helsinki or regional airports. In my portfolio, which has been divided geographically, I have Scandinavia, Central and Southern Europe and the Americas, meaning the US and Canada.
Background from airline business is an asset
“I’ve been in this position for four and half years now. Before that, I worked as Airport Manager in Vaasa. I then changed roles and was assigned to the head office due to my previous work experience at Finnair. Preparing codeshare agreements for the world’s biggest airlines made it easy to approach route development from an airport point-of-view.
“New destinations will give passengers more options. This, in turn, will make it possible to increase the number of passengers at our airports and help commercial operators become more excited to work with the Finavia network.
“My day begins at home. I usually read the latest airline newsletters, such as Air Transport World and Daily Airline Route, while eating breakfast. On my way to the office, I skim emails and start on my to-do-list, which is quite often long.
Highlights: new routes to Croatia and London
“As far as career highlights go, I can think of a few. The most important is that Norwegian Airlines increased the number of Helsinki-based aircraft from five to nine. Second is that Norwegian started a Lapland route between London Gatwick and Rovaniemi. The third is the Zagreb-Helsinki route with Croatian Airlines that we negotiated for a long time.
“Throughout my entire career, I have worked in the airline business, so it was very easy to change to the airport side. With my current role, I truly appreciate the international working environment and the opportunity to interact with people from many different cultures. Needless to say, I love this job.”
Good connections to the world are in our business core - Read more about responsibility at Finavia
