[john.sw]

Finnish carrier Finnair's soon to be introduced non-stop flights between Helsinki and New Delhi would be accompanied by some happy chortling, with the airline planning to fly Santa Claus from the Arctic Circle to the tropics to promote the service.

The Finnish Santa Claus, who lives above the Arctic Circle in Lapland region and each year receives over 11 million letters from believers across the world, including India, would visit New Delhi shortly after the inaugural flight on October 30.

Santa Claus, who has his own post office in Finland, will take part in the official opening of the airline's services in New Delhi on November nine and will also visit kindergartens and some hospitals in the Indian Capital.

Finnair, more than 40 per cent of whose business is already Asia related, is betting big on the direct India service, which would be scaled up to five a week by summer 2007 from the initial three flights.

"Advance booking reports look promising it would be ideal to have seven flights a week," Hienonen said on the service, which at six-and-half hours is billed as the shortest connection between India and Northern Europe.

The airline hopes to not only cater to the business travellers, but also to the growing Indian middle class, who it hopes would flock to see the natural beauty of northern Europe.

Finnair has been operating charter leisure services in summers to Goa in India for several years now. It also uses Ahmedabad for technical landing of flights to Phuket and plans to use Jaipur as a technical landing stop from this year.

Helsinki, Sept 4. (PTI): Read more (The Hindu)...

[jyotirmoy]

I read about this today. They seem to have very good connections to most of the important European destinations. Let us see what kind of excursion fares they will be offering during next sumer holidays.