Fast and reliable seafood transportation

Finnair Cargo has decades of experience in transporting fresh fish and seafood from Northern Europe to Asia and the US. Our Helsinki hub is ideally positioned to provide short and direct flight routes. Thanks to our world-class temperature control expertise, optimised handling times and daily frequencies, we are able to deliver fresh seafood fast and reliably around the Northern hemisphere.

The Cool terminal is equipped with sensors to ensure the right temperature and humidity for seafood.

There is a dedicated facility for perishables with its own entry and exit ways to minimise the contamination risk with other product types.

Temperature-controlled facilities in Helsinki

We follow the guidelines set by the IATA Perishable Cargo Regulations (PCR). Real-time tracking and digitally managed operations ensure fast handling of shipments. When arriving at Helsinki Airport, seafood cargo is accepted through the dedicated area for perishables and taken to dedicated storage areas inside the COOL terminal without delay. Seafood is always built and stored in temperatures between +2 and +8 degrees Celsius. To maintain high-quality service, all temperature-controlled products have high priority status and they are automatically monitored 24/7.

Finnair Cargo has received the highest level of excellence certificate in handling alimentary products from Oiva-hymy, a food control publication by the Finnish Food Authority.

Perishable centre in Helsinki terminal with different temperature ranges

Nature of goods	Temperature range	Facility size
Refrigerated building area (COL)	+2 to +8 degrees Celsius	2,100 m²
Refrigerated storage (COL)	+2 to +8 degrees Celsius	1,000 m²
Freezer storage (FRO)	-18 degrees Celsius	44 m²

Minimised tarmac time

The compact size of Helsinki Airport and the COOL terminal’s location right next to the long-haul terminal and aircraft parking means that the time on tarmac for all perishable cargo is less than 30 minutes. With efficiently designed processes and experienced staff, we ensure the product integrity stays uncompromised also during loading.

Road feeder services/wide-body aircraft	Terminal	Tarmac	Aircraft
3-20h	4h	30min	10h

Extensive network and faster routes

The geographical location of our Helsinki hub makes it the perfect gateway between Europe and Asia as well as North America. We offer short and smooth routes to 19 megacities in Asia, 7 cities in North America and over 100 destinations in Europe.

Shorter flight routes combined with efficient road feeder services from across Northern Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltics makes seafood transportation via Helsinki faster and more sustainable compared to other European hubs. Fresh produce is driven to Helsinki at dawn and flown to Asia and North America in the afternoon to be in the stores and restaurants the following day.

Salmon’s journey

Follow the salmon’s journey from northern Norway to Tokyo in only 36 hours.

Committed to sustainability

We as part of the Finnair Group are committed to becoming fully carbon neutral by 2045. To achieve this, we are investing in new aircraft, reducing the aircraft weight by shifting to lighter materials and increasing the usage of more sustainable fuels in our operations. Furthermore, our aim is to make our non-flight operations carbon neutral already in 2022.

Sustainability is part of our daily operations at the COOL terminal. The terminal design follows the BREEAM environmental standards, and we have optimised the cargo handling operations by using efficient management and automation systems. In addition, our 1,200 solar panels provide 10% of the terminal’s energy.

Our key focus areas also include more sustainable material management and protecting biodiversity. Due to this reason, we do not carry whale meat or any whale meat products.