The price of aviation fuel roughly doubled over the course of 10 days when the war in the Persian Gulf suddenly broke out, Hufvudstadsbladet reported on Thursday.

The Swedish-language daily noted that the situation has already led Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) to cancel a couple of hundred flights this month and at least 1,000 of its flights in April. The cancellations mostly affected routes that it offers several times a day.

However, HBL noted that Finnair has no immediate plans to cancel flights because of the rising fuel prices, and it doesn't plan to add fuel surcharges to ticket prices at the moment, either.

About a week ago, Finnair announced that it would be increasing ticket prices somewhat due to the rise in oil prices, but also said that it wasn't adding fuel surcharges.

One reason is that Finland has secured a large proportion of its fuel at a fixed price — a strategy known as hedging — so current skyrocketing oil prices aren't immediately affecting the airline's bottom line.

However, there is a chance that Finnair's situation could change in the longer term, when and if hedging prices rise — and that would result in higher ticket prices, according to the airline's SVP of network and revenue management, Antti Tolvanen.

There's another reason the airline hasn't carried out major pricing changes or cancellations since the war began.

"Ticket prices depend on supply and demand in the market. Many major airlines in the Middle East have cancelled a large proportion of their flights, and this increases demand and prices in long-haul traffic to Asia," Tolvanen explained, adding that the work of tracking air traffic profitability is continual.

If the lights go out…

A rolling power blackout across Finland would quickly cut off communications networks of people in the country — but such a scenario would also affect many authorities, according to news magazine Suomen Kuvalehti.

That's due to how a system called Virve is set up, the publication explained. Virve is a communications network used by the police, rescue services, the Border Guard and a number of other authorities.

Virve uses the same telecom radio towers as commercial customers. The base stations have batteries, but they would usually only last for a few hours, according to Timo Lehtimäki, the head of Erillisverkot, the firm charged with Virve's upkeep.

He said that if a nationwide outage began at 4pm, for example, only a fraction of the authorities would be able to communicate with each other the next morning.

Some base stations are also outfitted with diesel generators, but due to costs, there are not many of them, he explained.

If an emergency situation arises, the plan is to bring generators to the most critically needed base stations.

Lehtimäki pointed out that Sweden has ensured that its communications network for authorities is set up to operate under such circumstances for seven days.

"It's often said that Sweden is behind Finland in terms of preparedness, but in reality they have many arrangements that are significantly better than ours," Lehtimäki told Suomen Kuvalehti.

ADHD meds and boys

The social insurance agency Kela reported that the use of ADHD medication among boys has clearly increased in recent years, Uutissuomalainen reported on Thursday.

The wire story from Finnish news service STT noted that 11 percent of primary school-aged boys were using meds prescribed for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

According to Kela data, approximately 0.6 percent of all primary school-aged boys started taking ADHD medication for the first time in their lives in 2017 — but by 2024, that proportion had grown to a full three percent.

Last year, the agency said around 8,500 boys and young men began taking ADHD meds.

In Finland, children's use of ADHD drugs "is now clearly more common than in its closest neighbouring countries", Kela's research manager Miika Vuori explained.

"The growth has been very strong in all age groups, although in Sweden the medication is even more common among young women," he said in a Kela press release.

According to Kela, 3.8 percent of primary school-age girls used ADHD medication last year.