Amendments to the Aviation Act will enter into force on 1 September 2025, also affecting the permission process for obstacles to air navigation.

Demand for flight route services increased in 2024, even though air traffic in Finland recovered more slowly than in the rest of Europe. Air navigation services were provided for nearly 242,000 flights in area control and for over 153,000 take-offs and landings at Helsinki Airport. The number of overflights through Finnish airspace increased by more than 65,000 flights.

The Finnish aviation community is seeking shared solutions and coordinated measures to reduce unruly behaviour. In May, just before the busiest flight season, the community launches a joint campaign titled “Put yourself in flight mode”.

On 1 May 2025, the busiest fairways in the Port of Turku will introduce new meeting and overtaking prohibition areas for merchant vessels, which will harmonise and clarify traffic regulations in the area.

The first versions of the educational videos from the DigiMar project have been released, supporting navigational safety by improving routine maritime communication. These openly available videos are primarily aimed at VTS professionals and students, and they are based on international guidelines and authentic educational recordings. The videos offer practical support for developing communication skills.

Fintraffic’s application D/S POLO is already in use in more than thirty ports. A user survey shows that users find the service to be useful for their organisations, especially in providing a situational picture of schedules. The application received an overall score of 4/5 in the survey. This year, completely new features will be launched in the app related to vessel notifications, winter navigation and more.

In 2024, VTS Centres prevented 14 vessels from running aground and prevented near misses from developing into accidents. This information is from the newly completed annual statistics on prevented groundings by Fintraffic’s Vessel Traffic Services. In 2024, nearly 20 new vessel traffic meeting and overtaking prohibition areas and new special transport safety zones were also introduced in Finland.

Digitalizing Port Operations – Optimizing Maritime Logistics in the Baltic Sea
Date: January 30, 2025 
Time: 12:00 CET to 13:30 CET (13:00–14:30 EET)

The Sustainable Flow project is the first global project focusing on both the development of a digital tool and energy savings and renewable energy to reduce CO2 emissions in the transport sector, especially in the maritime sector and in ports. A digital tool developer has now been selected through a tender process. A total of nine international service providers participated in the public tendering process, and of these Awake.AI Oy was selected.