Highland Airways, operator of flights from Oban to Argyll islands, wins Finland contract

Highland Airways, which operates the flights from Oban Airport to Argyll’s islands of Colonsay, Coll and Tiree, has just won a contract to fly an internal route in Finland.

From next week – starting on 12th January, Highland Airways will run three flights each week day between the Finnish capital, Helsinki and the city of Lappeenranta, on of Finland’s largest cities and centre of historically interesting South Karelia.

The aircraft operating the route will be a 19-seater Jetstream 31, in the livery of Fly Lappeenranta.

It is the company’s first contract outside the UK but there is (as yet) no service from Inverness, Highland Airways’ home airport, to Helsinki.

If such a service were to exist, it would have a lot to commend it to travellers and businesses at both ends of the journey. Helsinki is the Baltic capital of cool. One area of the city is design focused – with shops, fashion designers, architects, bars and cafe’s like the legendary Strindbergs. Two of the city’s most striking buildings are cathedrals – the Lutheran Cathedral (pictured above) on a height in the City Centre; and the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the Uspenski (pictured here), down by the harbour. Both have fascinating histories. And the opportunity to fly on to Lappeenranta in Karelia, fought over by Russia and Finland, is a very seductive one.

Both photographs reproduced here are licensed under Creative Commons.

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