The Finnish airline Finnair is temporarily suspending its flights to Tartu, Estonia. The company announced this on Monday. The reason is repeated disruptions to the GPS signal in the region. “Last week, two Finnair flights had to be diverted to Helsinki after GPS interference prevented them from approaching Tartu,” said a Finnair statement.

From April 29th to May 31st, daily connections between Helsinki and Tartu would therefore be canceled. They now want to look for an “alternative solution” for the approach to the Estonian city.

Nevertheless, the company emphasized that the interference with the GPS signal did not affect the safety of flight operations. "The systems on Finnair's aircraft detect GPS interference, our pilots are aware of the problem and the aircraft have other navigation systems that can be used if the GPS system is not operational," said Finnair operations manager Jari Paajanen. German airlines do not fly to Tartu.

The GPS signal jamming in the Baltics may be part of Russia's hybrid warfare. According to Finnair, incidents have increased since 2022, the year of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and have been recorded primarily near the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, in the Black Sea region, the Caspian Sea and the eastern Mediterranean.

Just at the weekend, the foreign ministers of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania pointed out in the "Financial Times" (FT) that Russia was deliberately disrupting GPS signals through so-called jamming, thus increasing the risk of an aircraft accident. The Kremlin did not respond to a request from the FT for comment.

Sources: Finnair, "Financial Times", news agencies DPA and AFP