Strong growth lends wings to Finnair half year results

Finnair's turnover rose by almost 16% to 471.9 million euros in April-June 2005. Operating profit improved from 4.7 million euros in 2004 to 35.5 million euros this year. Finnair's traffic growth has been at over 10% in the first half of the year.

"Finnair's growth is among the best in the industry, which shows that our strategy is working well. The engine of sustainable, profitable growth is Asian traffic, but our subsidiary flynordic is also contributing to an increasing extent. At this rate we will increase our turnover by around 200 million euros this year," said Finnair President and CEO Keijo Suila.

The turnover for the first half of the year rose 12% and the total result after taxes was 37.9 million euros and earnings per share was 0.45 euros.

"The work we have done to improve productivity and efficiency over many difficult years is now bearing fruit. The positive trend is even exceeding our expectations and I am delighted with the good result we have achieved. Our strong price and cost competitiveness means that our result for the current year will be clearly in profit."

Operating costs in the second quarter rose by over 9%. Due to the high price of fuel unit costs for flight operations rose 1.3% while excluding fuel costs fell by just over 3%. Unit revenues for passenger traffic rose by a little under 5%.

The first four of 12 Embraer 170 aircraft ordered by Finnair will join the fleet in September-November. The seventh Boeing MD-11 long-haul aircraft will join the Finnair fleet in autumn 2005. Preparations for the opening of new routes in Europe and Asia are underway. Guangzhou in China and Nagoya in Japan as well as Edinburgh, Geneva, Krakow and Florence in Europe will boost Finnair's gateway traffic capacity.

"Competition in the northern skies continues to be tight and costs are burdened by rising fuel prices. Without continual operational rationalisation we cannot achieve the financial level we need when we will modernise and expand our fleet in the coming years. As far as the future is concerned, I am confident. The new destinations we have announced, our aircraft acquisitions and the recruitment and training of new personnel are clear indications of this," Suila declared.

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