Finnair traffic up 10% in October 2004

Finnair traffic, measured in passenger kilometers, increased by 10.6% in October 2004, while capacity was up by 11.6%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 69.8%, 0.6 points lower than last year. All Finnair Group airlines altogether transported 706,500 passengers, which is 9.9% more than a year ago.

Finnair scheduled traffic increased by 7.2% compared to October last year. Passenger load factor was 64.5%, down 1.4 percentage points. The number of passengers carried was 566,700, up 9.2%.

Departure punctuality of scheduled flights was 89.1% (based on a fifteen minute standard), 3.7 points lower than in October 2003. Temporary deterioration was caused by implementation of a new air traffic control system. Including leisure flights departure punctuality was 87.9% (-3.8 p.p). Arrival punctuality of scheduled flights was 89.6% and that of all operations was 87.9%.

Finnair's Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero AS, carried 9,900 passengers (-8.3%) on Tallinn-Helsinki route. During October, Stockholm-based flynordic (former Nordic Airlink) continued to gain market share and carried a record 73,400 passengers on its Scandinavian routes.

Scheduled traffic

In scheduled traffic (international + domestic) revenue passenger kilometres increased by 7.2%. The change in capacity was +9.6%. Passenger load factor was 64.5%, 1.4 percentage points lower than last year.

In scheduled international traffic, the total number of passengers was up by 19.4%, partly affected by adding Nordic Airlink figures. Capacity in ASKs was +11.8%, while RPKs increased by 8.8%.

In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 14.7%, and as RPKs increased by 8.1%, the passenger load factor was 54.7%, down 3.3 points from previous year.

In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity decreased by 26.1% due to changing JFK frequency from 7 to 5 flights a week. Change in RPKs was -12.9%, and passenger load factor for October was 79.5%, 12.0 points higher than previous year.

In Asian scheduled traffic, capacity increase was 18.7% mainly due to adding frequencies to Shanghai and Osaka since the beginning of June. The passenger traffic was up by 14.7%. Passenger load factor was 80.4%, 2.8 percentage points down. During the first ten months of the year, Finnair transported over half million passengers on its Asian flights.

Domestic scheduled traffic decreased by 6.3% on a capacity decrease of 4.8%. Passenger load factor declined by 0.8 percentage points to 50.6%.

Leisure traffic

ASKs for leisure traffic increased in October by 16.6%, and RPKs increased by 17.5%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 82.5%, 0.6 points higher than last year.

Cargo

Cargo traffic increased by 9.8% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was +0.3%. Increase in Asian traffic was 10.9%. Volume in European traffic decreased by 5.5%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume decreased by 14.0%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights increased by 123.3%. The cargo load factor was 65.7%. The cargo load factor in the Far Eastern traffic was 82.4% and in the North Atlantic traffic 87.3%.

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