Major airline cancels flights affecting 10,000 passengers over seat covers issue

One of Europe's largest airlines was compelled to ground dozens of flights this week (Image: Getty)

Finnair, one of Europe's largest airlines carrying over 11 million passengers annually, was compelled to ground dozens of flights this week due to an unusual maintenance issue affecting its aircraft seats. The issue impacted over 10,000 passengers who were scheduled to fly with Finnair between October 13 and 17. The airline identified the problem as a faulty seat cleaning procedure, specifically the water washing of seat covers, which raised safety concerns related to fire protection systems.

On Monday and Tuesday, October 13 and 14, the airline cancelled 40 services, followed by another 18 cancellations on Wednesday and Thursday, October 15 and 16, according to FlightAware. Four more flights, including the morning service from Heathrow to Helsinki, were cancelled on Friday, October 17. While Finnair's strategy of swapping aircraft types and attempting to minimise cancellations may have reduced the total number of affected flights, many passengers were left stranded or dealing with overbooked flights. This posed significant challenges for business travellers and tourists on tight schedules.

The airline identified the problem as a faulty seat cleaning procedure (Image: Getty)

A Finnair statement read: "The reason for the suspension is information received from the seat cover manufacturer indicating that the impact of the seat cover cleaning method (water washing) on fire protection has not been properly verified. Safety is always our top priority, and we always follow the manufacturers' maintenance instructions as well as the guidelines and recommendations of the authorities.

"Due to the situation, we have cancelled several flights between 13 and 17 October 2025. Going forward, we will need to make some daily aircraft type changes to minimise the number of cancellations. These aircraft changes will likely lead to overbookings.

"Flight cancellations, delays or changes in the operating airline may also occur."

For holidaymakers, it's crucial to understand that if your flight faces delays exceeding two hours, airlines should provide affected passengers with complimentary food and drink vouchers to ease the inconvenience.

Similarly, should your flight be rescheduled to the next day, travellers are entitled to request overnight accommodation from their airline.

Should your flight face cancellation, passengers may demand a complete refund for their ticket cost or request alternative seating on another flight from the carrier. This replacement seat might be on a different airline's service or to and from an alternative airport.

Disrupted travellers could also qualify for compensation reaching £520, based on flight distance and delay duration, unless Finnair notified you of the cancellation a minimum of 14 days prior to departure.

Affected travellers could qualify for compensation up to £520 (Image: Getty)

You can verify Finnair's delay and cancellation policies alongside your compensation entitlement immediately.

Aviation rights expert Anton Radchenko, chief executive of AirAdvisor, said: "Based on what we know, a number of Airbus A321s, which play a key role in Finnair's fleet, required inspection and were taken out of service, due to seat covers on the aircraft not being cleaned according to the manufacturer's instructions.

"It seems to be one of those freak maintenance mishaps that sometimes affect airlines and unfortunately in this case, thousands of their passengers too.

"From a compensation perspective under UK and EU law (regulations UK261 and EU261) passengers whose flights were cancelled as a result of this operational error, which the courts may deem as within an airline's control, could be due up to £520 in compensation for the inconvenience caused.

"It remains to be seen how Finnair will frame the cause of the cancellations, but the issue appears to have originated from a maintenance procedure rather than a regulatory safety order."

Anton added: "Fortunately, major airlines do take the safety of their passengers extremely seriously and Finnair should be commended for taking the required steps as swiftly as possible."