Finnair's scheduled passenger traffic grows 20% in August 2004

In August 2004, Finnair's scheduled traffic increased by 19.9% compared to August last year. Passenger load factor was 68.8%, up 0.5 percentage points. The major driver in the growth of demand was a 19.0% increase in capacity.

All Finnair Group airlines altogether transported 657,400 passengers, which is 11.7% more than a year ago. The total traffic (RPK's), summing up both scheduled and leisure traffic, increased by 15.9%, while the capacity (ASK = available seat kilometres) was also up by 15.9%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 72.9%.

Departure punctuality of scheduled flights was 88.3% (based on a fifteen minute standard), 5.9 points lower than in August 2003. Including leisure flights departure punctuality was 87.3% (-6.2 p.p). The airline stated that the main reason for the deterioration of punctuality was an illegal industrial action by the ramp personnel. Arrival punctuality of scheduled flights was 90.4% and that of all operations was 88.9%.

Finnair's Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero Airlines AS, carried 9,300 passengers (+28.4%) on Tallinn-Helsinki route. During August, Stockholm-based Nordic Airlink carried 34,000 passengers on its Scandinavian routes.

Scheduled traffic

In scheduled traffic (international + domestic) revenue passenger kilometres increased by 19.9%. The change in capacity was +19.0%. Passenger load factor was 68.8%, 0.5 percentage points higher than last year. 

In scheduled international traffic, total number of passengers was up by 17.9%, partly affected by adding Nordic Airlink figures. Capacity in ASKs was +22.2%, while RPKs increased by 21.2%.

In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 9.9%, and as RPKs increased by 8.2%, the passenger load factor was 59.2%, down 0.9 points from previous year.

In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity increased by 3.3%. Change in RPKs was +11.4%, and passenger load factor for August was 89.5%, 6.5 points higher than previous year.

In Asian scheduled traffic, the capacity increase was 49.4% mainly due to adding frequencies to Shanghai and Osaka since beginning of June. The passenger traffic was up by 39.9%. Passenger load factor was 79.8%, 5.5 percentage points down.

Domestic scheduled traffic increased by 6.5% on a capacity decrease of -4.2%. Passenger load factor improved by 5.5 percentage points to 54.8%.

Leisure traffic

ASKs for leisure traffic increased in August by 4.6%, and RPKs increased by 4.9%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 90.0%, 0.3 points higher than last year.

Cargo

Cargo traffic increased by 31.8% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was +19.7%. Increase in Asian traffic was 40.9%. Volume in European traffic increased by 9.0%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume increased by 0.4%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights increased over 500%. The cargo load factor was 58.2%. The cargo load factor in the Far Eastern traffic was 71.5% and in the North Atlantic traffic 69.2%.