Strong Growth continues for Finnair’s Europe-Asia Traffic

Finnair Scheduled Passenger Traffic grew by 18.2% compared with the year before. European traffic demand grew by 26.8% and by 22.7% on Asian routes. 70% of passengers on Asian flights have connections on Finnair’s European network. Growth in Europe has also benefited from doubling of frequencies to Rome and Barcelona as well as strong demand on destinations launched this spring, namely Bucharest, Gdansk, Lisbon, Ljubljana and Nuremberg.

Asian traffic has increased by 30% since the beginning of the year compared with the previous year. In May growth was a little over 20% due to one MD-11 long-haul aircraft being in scheduled maintenance. For the whole year, Asian traffic is expected to grow by 30%. In the between seasons time of May, the passenger load factor was lower than the normal 80%. In May, passenger loads for Asian traffic were at the same level as last year at 73.1%.

Thanks to the 76-100 seat Embraer aircraft, capacity in domestic traffic has been better targeted which shows as capacity cuts and better load factors. The passenger load factor for May for domestic traffic improved by 5 percentage units to 58.9% year-on-year. In North American Traffic, which only includes New York, decreased by 19.2%. Capacity has been cut by 10.9% so the passenger load factor dropped from last year’s peak figure by 8.2 percentage points to 79.2%.

The passenger load factor for the entire Scheduled Passenger Traffic was a little higher than the previous year at 70.6%. Passenger numbers grew from last year by 4.9% to 693,800 passengers. Total demand and capacity for all Finnair Group airlines increased by almost 14% in May, so the passenger load factor remained at last years level of 72.2%. The Group's airlines carried a total of 780,800 passengers in May.

Finnair's Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero AS, carried 30,900 passengers (-57.9%) on routes between Helsinki and the Baltic capitals and within Southern Finland. During May, Stockholm-based FlyNordic carried 112,000 passengers (-1.1%). Aero and FlyNordic figures are included in Finnair Group's total figures.

Arrival punctuality of scheduled flights was 86.1% (based on a fifteen minute standard), 4.5 points lower than in May 2006. Including leisure flights arrival punctuality was 84.8% (-4.9 p.p). Punctuality has improved significantly from the beginning of the year.

Scheduled Traffic

In scheduled traffic (international + domestic) revenue passenger kilometres increased by 18.2% while the change in capacity was 17.3%. Passenger load factor was 70.6%, 0.6 percentage points higher than last year.

In scheduled international traffic, the total number of passengers was up by 13.6%. Capacity in ASKs was 21.1%, while RPKs increased by 20.7%.

In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 24.7%, and as RPKs increased by 26.8%, the passenger load factor was 68.9%, up 1.1 points from previous year.

In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity decreased by 10.9%. Change in RPKs was -19.2%, and passenger load factor for February was 79.2%, 8.2 points lower than in 2006.

In Asian scheduled traffic, capacity increase was 22.8%, and passenger traffic was up by 22.7%. The passenger load factor was 73.1%.

Domestic scheduled traffic decreased by 16.2% on a capacity decrease of 23.3%, while passenger load factor increased by 5 percentage points to 58.9%.

Leisure Traffic

ASKs for leisure traffic decreased in February by 3.1%, and RPKs decreased by 3.9%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 81.9%, 0.7 points lower than last year.

Cargo

Cargo traffic increased by 1% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was 5.9%. Increase in Asian traffic was 25%. Volume in European traffic decreased by 14.6%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume decreased by 22.8%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights decreased by 33.9%. The cargo load factor was 46.8%. The cargo load factor in the Far Eastern traffic was 61.6% and in the North Atlantic traffic 66.5%.

See other recent news regarding: Travel News Asia, Finnair