If you opened the printed paper this morning, you may have seen the hefty price of €2,300 for the repatriation flight for Finns stranded in the United Arab Emirates, which is facing missile attacks from Iran in retaliation for US-Israeli air strikes.
The attacks continue. But the price is now old news.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs updated its price tag in a news release yesterday, after the print deadline. The cost dropped by about 47% in just a few days! The new price: €1,230.
Before that Jussi Tanner, the director general of consular affairs at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, called the flight “really expensive mainly because of insurance premiums.”
But now, according to the ministry, “the preliminary price communicated earlier was adjusted so that passengers are charged only for the return part of the booked flight.”
The return flight is scheduled to depart from Muscat, Oman, on Sunday. Bus transfers from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to the Muscat airport will leave early Sunday morning. The bus fare is not included in the repatriation package price.
On Friday, the foreign ministry will decide who will be allowed to board Sunday’s repatriation flight,Tanner said, now speaking on the national broadcaster YLE’s current affairs program in the morning.
600 people have registered to travel, but the plane can accommodate only about 160 passengers.
The foreign ministry will consider various vulnerability criteria in the selection process, such as the number and age of children and health problems. However, according to Tanner, Sunday’s flight is not entirely certain.
“There are still major uncertainties. Flights in many countries have been canceled,” he said.
Finnair, for example, has cancelled its flights to Doha and Dubai until March 28.
Regarding the sudden price drop, Tanner added: “Of course, communicating the price won’t earn us any style points, but we wanted to play it safe and make sure that the opposite doesn’t happen—that we don’t have to announce that the price is doubling to such an unreasonable level.”
Registration for the flight is binding. To board, passengers must sign a repayment commitment.
