Photo: Finnair

Finnair, the sole international airline operating flights to Tartu, Estonia, has suspended its daily service to the city from April 29 to May 31, 2024. The decision comes in response to ongoing GNSS interferences and disruptions, including two instances where flights had to return to Helsinki, Finland, due to excessive jamming in the region.

The current approach methods at Tartu Airport rely heavily on GNSS signals, which have been disrupted frequently in the area. To address this, Finnair plans to use the one-month flight suspension period to develop and implement alternative navigation methods at Tartu Airport that can operate independently of GNSS. Finnair aims to enhance the safety and reliability of operations, preventing similar incidents in the future.

This suspension of flights highlights a broader issue of increasing GNSS jamming and spoofing, which has been a growing concern since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 — specifically near Kaliningrad, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.

On December 31, 2023, parts of Finland experienced significant jamming, which affected aviation and low navigation integrity reports from ADS-B systems. These were displayed on the GPSJam.org website.

Estonian Foreign Minister, Margus Tsahkna, points to Russia as the source of the interference. Tsahkna told The Baltic News Service that jamming carried out by Russia is so dangerous that sooner or later it will cause a plane crash, ultimately endangering civilians.