Finnair reports Increased Traffic for July 2007

In July, Finnair scheduled traffic increased by 24.9% compared to in July 2006. Demand increased up to 30% in both Asian and European traffic. The growth was partly generated with new long-haul aircraft. Domestic traffic was adjusted to lower demand during the mid-summer by 27%, which improved the passenger load factor by a sturdy 5% to 72.3%. New route openings pressed passenger load factors in other traffic categories, with the total passenger load factor in scheduled traffic 79.1%, down 1 percentage point. The number of passengers carried was 589,776 up 13.3%.

Finnair traffic, measured in passenger kilometers, increased by 16.5% in July, while the capacity was up by 20.2%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 79.7% or 2.5 points lower than last year. Finnair Group airlines altogether transported 706,808 passengers, which is 7.8% more than a year ago.

Finnair's Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero AS, carried 20,218 passengers (- 62.5%) on routes between Helsinki and the Baltic capitals and within Southern Finland. Aero figures are included in the Finnair Group total figures. At the end of June, Finnair sold its Stockholm-based subsidiary airline FlyNordic and its traffic performance is now no longer reported as part of the Finnair Group statistics. For better comparison, equivalent figures for last year have been adjusted accordingly.

In scheduled international traffic, the total number of passengers was up by 24.5%. Capacity in ASKs was 29.2%, while RPKs increased by 27%.

In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 32.6%, and as RPKs increased by 29%, the passenger load factor was 77.9%, down 2.2 points from previous year.

In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity decreased by 0.5%. Change in RPKs was -5.4%, and passenger load factor for July was 83.7%, 4.3 points lower than previous year.

In Asian scheduled traffic, the capacity increase was 31.1%. Passenger traffic was up by 30.7%, while the passenger load factor was 79.9%, 0.3 percentage points down.

Domestic scheduled traffic decreased by 21.6% on a capacity decrease of 27%. The Passenger load factor increased by 5 percentage points to 72.3%.

Leisure traffic

ASKs for leisure traffic decreased in July by 2.5%, and RPKs were down by 10.5%, because of added flight capacity to the Finnish market by tour operators. Passenger load factor in leisure traffic was 82.6%, 7.4 points lower than last year due to lower load factor on North American leisure routes and lower demand to European leisure destinations.

Cargo

Cargo traffic increased by 7.2% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was 10.4%. Increase in Asian traffic was 16.6%. Volume in European traffic increased by 10.4%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume decreased by 16.3%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights decreased by 41.8%. The cargo load factor was 33.8 %. The cargo load factor in the Far Eastern traffic was 37.6 % and in the North Atlantic traffic 70.1 %.

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