This Finnish Firm Builds Startup For Frequent Flyers

    Finland-based airline startup GoAviation promises to fly passengers for the fixed subscription fee anywhere in Europe. However, at the start the monthly plane ticket lets you fly only between Kuopio, Helsinki and Tallinn.

    Starting from 2150 euros per month you can hop on those flights with a short notice, but the service will become more interesting if the firm sticks to its plan to open routes to seven countries next year.

    “This model is extremely good for frequent business travellers,” says co-founder Jorma Kario, “At large and busy airports a lot of time is spent waiting, not to mention getting to the airport and onto the destination. With GoFly it’s enough to arrive at the terminal 15 minutes before departure, and the booking and check-in can be done on the go with the handy mobile app. We take people from where they are to where they go.”

    Founded in 2014 by 2 friends — Kario and Roope Kekäläinen — the company launched its first flight in February 29, 2016 after spending a year to get a licence.

    Finland is one of the few countries in Europe where single-engine airplane is permitted for flights carrying fare-paying passengers. The founders took advantage of this opportunity.

    The founders admit that their biggest challenge right now lays down in getting the aircrafts. “It’s difficult to get funding for airplanes before we have cash flow, and we can’t have the cash flow before we get airplanes”. GoAviation has raised a seed round of 1 million euros, and started to work on larger financing round last month.