Gift from atop

Finland's flag carrier Finnair is offering closer links with India as part of a strategic wooing exercise.

Santa Claus is coming to town, straight from his home in the Arctic circle, and you won't even have to wait till Christmas for his ho-ho-ho to fill the air with merriment.

Finland's flag carrier, Finnair, is launching non-stop thrice weekly Helsinki-Delhi flights "" MD-11 aircraft rather than sleighs, though "" on October 30 this year, and if the buzz is anything to go by, Santa himself might drop by for its inauguration.

The link opens up Scandinavia to Indian tourists, who're accustomed to south and west Europe as "Europe". The Finnish Tourism Board wants this to change. And fast. It is soon to get a visit-Finland campaign going, and has set up some deals with private sector players in India to arouse interest.

Also: expect special lures for Hindi filmmakers to shoot films there (the snowy landscapes in Fanaa have put Scandinavia in popular consciousness already). At a recent event at Mumbai's Outbound Tourist Mart (OTM), Finland drew some 150 people from the film industry.

Yet, according to Tiana Tornstrom, director, Indian subcontinent, Finnair, the airline expects over half the traffic to be business-related, given the ready market it has in the 50-odd Finnish companies in India (of which Nokia is the best known) that employ some 4,000 people in all, several of them Finns.

There's another big reason too. Finland, famous for its ideologically agnostic welfare state as much as super-specialised industries such as paper, ice-breakers and mobile phones, has been rather keen on strategic ties with India.

Of late, it has been trying to get Indian software whizkids to work closely with its hardware technologists to get on top of the world (literally, it already is) in the intersection space of communication and technology "" the ultimate stuff of Finnish finesse.

More flights have an undeniable role in this budding relationship. For the first time now, a software engineer would be able to fly straight from India to northern Europe. On a great circle route, Helsinki is seven-and-a-half hours away from Delhi, while the return flight is an hour shorter, thanks to tailwind.

The business class return fare, at Rs 89,990 plus taxes, is reasonably attractive given the full-recline seating (flat-beds are fast becoming the norm even on business class, it would seem). An economy return ticket is available as low as Rs 17,000, plus taxes. (Helsinki's airport taxes will set you back by another Rs 5,800.)

If all goes well, the Helsinki-Delhi link will turn daily in April 2007, in case of which Finnair has the option of flying to another Indian city (as stipulated in the bilateral agreement). For Indian professionals keen on the Finnish opportunity, that would be no trivial gift from the bearded old man of mirth and myth at the north pole.