Positive Passenger Numbers for Finnair in February

Finnair's Asian traffic in February 2008, measured in passenger kilometers, grew 20.6% compared to February 2007. The number of passengers carried on Finnair's Asian flights in February was 93,200 equal to 17% more than a year ago. Additional capacity was directed to the Mumbai and Delhi routes. Altogether Finnair scheduled traffic increased by 15.2% compared to February last year. The number of passengers carried was 536,368 or 5.2% more than in February 2007.

Passenger load factor was 67.8%, 3 percentage points lower than last year. The passenger load factor in February was affected more strongly by the Chinese New Year than Finnish winter holidays, which demonstrates the growing significance of Asian traffic in Finnair's traffic performance.

Finnair traffic, measured in passenger kilometers, increased by 17.3% in February, while the capacity was up by 20.3%, resulting in   passenger load factor of 74.8% or 2 points lower than last year. Leisure flights' passenger load factor was the same as the previous year, 94%. All Finnair Group airlines altogether transported 647,975 passengers, which is 7.7% more than a year ago.

Finnair's Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero AS ended operations on 6 January 2008. Aero figures are included in Finnair Group total figures. In July 2007 Finnair sold its Stockholm-based subsidiary airline FlyNordic and its traffic performance is no longer reported as part of Finnair Group statistics. For better comparison, equivalent figures for last year have been adjusted accordingly.

Arrival punctuality of scheduled flights was 68.9%, which was 7.1 points lower than in February 2007. Including leisure flights arrival punctuality was 65.9% (-8 p.p).

Scheduled Traffic

In scheduled traffic (international + domestic) revenue passenger kilometres increased by 15.2%. The change in capacity was 20.3%. Passenger load factor was 67.8%, 3 percentage points lower than last year.

In scheduled international traffic, total number of passengers was up by 12.7%. Capacity in ASKs was 22.9%, while RPKs increased by 16.9%.

In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 19.8%, and as RPKs increased by 13.8%, the passenger load factor was 60.2%, down 3.2 points from previous year.

In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity decreased by 6%. Change in RPKs was -3.2%, and passenger load factor for February was 76.1%, 2.2 points higher than previous year.

In Asian scheduled traffic, capacity increase was 27.9%. The passenger traffic was up by 20.6%. Passenger load factor was 73.7%, 4.5 percentage points down.

Domestic scheduled traffic decreased by 2.4% on a capacity decrease of 2%. Passenger load factor decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 60.1%.

Leisure Traffic

ASKs for leisure traffic increased in February by 20.5%, and RPKs increased by 21.8%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 94.9%, 1 point higher than last year.

Cargo

Cargo traffic increased by 17.2% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was 22.6%. Increase in Asian traffic was 35%. Volume in European traffic increased by 4.7%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume increased by 4.3%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights decreased by 43.4%. The cargo load factor in the Far Eastern traffic was 71.2% and in the  North Atlantic traffic 82.3%

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