Lufthansa launch­es direct flights between Oulu and Munich

The Ger­man air­line Lufthansa will launch direct flights between Munich and Oulu on Decem­ber 16, 2023. The flights will oper­ate on Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days.

From a busi­ness per­spec­tive, the flight launch­ing will open a new gate­way that con­nects Oulu with the heart of Europe.

Accord­ing to Business­Oulu Direc­tor Juha Ala-Mur­su­la, “this is a his­toric break­through that will pro­vide Oulu Region busi­ness­es with access to the vital Ger­man mar­kets and, more broad­ly, Cen­tral Europe.”

Yrjö­ta­pio Kivisaari, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Oulu Tourism Ltd (Oulun Matkailu Oy), express­es that the open­ing of the new flight con­nec­tion is the is the result of long-term effort:

– Oulun Matkailu Oy and Business­Oulu have been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly nego­ti­at­ing and work­ing on the route’s open­ing for a year and a half. We have met Lufthansa rep­re­sen­ta­tives sev­er­al times in Fin­land and abroad. Finavia has also tak­en part in the nego­ti­a­tions, says Kivisaari

Based on infor­ma­tion from Oulun Matkailu Oy, the new flight con­nec­tion is expect­ed to increase win­ter tourism in the Oulu region and to enable diverse coop­er­a­tion with Ger­man tour oper­a­tors. Near­ly 4,000 new Ger­man tourists could arrive in the region this win­ter.

– Oulu is final­ly on our route map! We have been work­ing hard for sev­er­al months to include this miss­ing piece in our Finnish des­ti­na­tions. This is the per­fect moment to launch a route to and from Oulu, and it will fit in per­fect­ly with the oth­er routes of the Lufh­tansa Group air­lines, men­tioned Patrick Borg Hed­ley, Coun­try Man­ag­er Fin­land for Lufh­tansa Group air­lines.

Sum­mer flights in the future?

Lufthansa flights between Oulu and Munich will be avail­able from 18 July. Win­ter flights will oper­ate until the end of March 2024.
Oulu Tourism (Oulun Matkailu Oy) and Business­Oulu hope that book­ings will start as soon as pos­si­ble.

A deci­sion on the con­tin­u­a­tion of the route for next sum­mer will already be tak­en dur­ing this autumn. Accord­ing to Kivisaari “the prof­itabil­i­ty of the route will be cal­cu­lat­ed from the moment it opens.”

– We hope that the good suc­cess of the route would guar­an­tee its con­ti­nu­ity and bring tourists to the Oulu region in the future as well. In the future, the air con­nec­tion would also enable busi­ness trav­el and leisure trav­el for Oulu res­i­dents in the direc­tion of Europe.

It is hoped that the new flight con­nec­tion will bring healthy com­pe­ti­tion and increase pas­sen­ger num­bers at Oulu Air­port.

Petri Vuori, direc­tor of Finavi­a’s route devel­op­ment says:

– The route open­ing is great news for Oulu Air­port, which car­ries tra­di­tion as an impor­tant part of Finavi­a’s air­port net­work and the acces­si­bil­i­ty of Fin­land. Lufthansa’s route to Cen­tral Europe sig­nif­i­cant­ly improves the con­nec­tions of Oulu region res­i­dents to the world, con­nect­ing them to the com­pre­hen­sive route net­work of Munich Air­port. The route also opens a new con­nec­tion for tourism head­ing north from Ger­many.

Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion:

Juha Ala-Mur­su­la, Direc­tor, Business­Oulu
+358 40 559 7020, juha.ala-mursula@businessoulu.com

Juu­so Rönnholm, Pub­lic Affairs Man­ag­er, Business­Oulu
+358 50 574 1504, juuso.ronnholm@businessoulu.com

Markus Issakainen (Lufthansa), Juu­so Rönnholm (Business­Oulu), Yrjö­ta­pio Kivisaari (Vis­it Oulu), Patrick Borg Hed­ley (Lufthansa) and Juha Ala-Mur­su­la (Business­Oulu).