Transavia suspends flights to Savonlinna amid GPS interference concerns

Dutch airline Transavia has suspended flights to Savonlinna due to concerns over GPS interference. The company was operating charter flights from Rotterdam to Savonlinna, commissioned by the Dutch travel agency Voigt Travel. Transavia has indicated that it cannot guarantee flight safety due to the proximity to the Russian border and reported GPS disturbances in the area. The airline will reroute planned flights to Savonlinna to Helsinki until the end of September. A total of 13 flights were scheduled for this summer.

Earlier reports from the newspaper Itä-Savo noted that Transavia had already completed four flights to Savonlinna this summer before deciding to relocate operations. The city of Savonlinna had contributed €40,000 to fund these flights. Following the cancellations, tourists are being transported by bus from Helsinki to the Saimaa region for their holidays.

Finavia, the authority responsible for airports and air traffic control, stated that no GPS interference has been detected in Savonlinna. This assertion is supported by Maavoima Oy, which manages ground services for Hungarian BASe Airlines. Maavoima’s operational director Juha Köykkä confirmed that pilots have not reported any GPS disturbances at Savonlinna in the past few years. The airport also has an Instrument Landing System (ILS) that can be utilized as an alternative to GPS for approach and landing on runway 12.

Finavia has not provided details regarding Savonlinna’s navigation systems but confirmed that an additional backup approach system will be constructed at the airport this fall, emphasizing that this is part of normal development and not in response to GPS interference concerns. In the spring, Finnair had to cancel flights to Tartu, Estonia, due to Russian GPS interference, but resumed them after the addition of a Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) system at the airport, allowing approaches without GPS.