Fully vaccinated travellers from the EU and Schengen countries will now be able to enter Finland freely. Meanwhile, Finnair airline will also discontinue its mandatory requirement for flyers to present COVID-19 certificates. By Yagnoseni Das
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According to an official statement, Finland will open its doors to travellers from the European Union (EU) and Schengen countries on July 12. If travellers are fully vaccinated, have been infected by COVID-19 earlier, are born in 2006 or later, or have arrived from a country with relatively low cases of infection–no additional measures will be required from them to enter the country.
With this update, vaccinated travellers will only be required to take a COVID-19 test, the result of which should be issued not more than 72 hours upon arrival. Non-vaccinated travellers, on the other hand, will be required to carry a valid RT-PCR negative test result with them.
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Reportedly, following through with this new model, starting July 12, Finnair, a Finnish airline and the nation’s flag carrier, will also discontinue its requirement for customers to present COVID-19 certificates before boarding flights to Finland.
Jaakko Schildt, Finnair’s Chief Operating Officer says in a statement, “With the new legislation, the requirements for entry [will be] checked on arrival, so our customers [would] not need to show their certificates to Finnair customer service agent at the check-in when their destination is Finland. We [will] continue to check the documents for those transiting to an international flight at Helsinki, as per authority requirements.”
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He further adds, “The health and safety of our customers is a key priority for us, and we [will] continue to have comprehensive measures in place on our flights to ensure safe travel. These include, among others, the obligation to wear a mask for the duration of the flight”.
However, during the interim period, that is, July 12-25, Finnair will undertake checks to ensure that passengers flying to Finland meet the Finnish entry requirements when they depart from a country outside the group of normalised border traffic—considering internal border control still prevails, and EU and Schengen countries have not yet allowed leisure traffic.
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