Higher Indian traffic helps Finnair improve load factor
April 7th, 2010 - 6:05 pm ICT by IANSHelsinki, April 7 (IANS) Helped by a 27-percent growth in Asian traffic, led mainly by higher passenger movement to and from India, Nordic carrier Finnair Wednesday reported an overall 19-percent jump in such demand during March.
“Due to successful capacity management, Finnair aircraft are flying fuller than before. The improvement of 12 percentage points in load factor is exceptional,” the carrier’s main spokesperson Christer Haglund said in a statement.
Asian traffic grew in March by 27 per cent, with a total of 114,000 passengers. The load factor in Asia was also good at nearly 87 percent, which helped the airline’s overall carriage to jump to 80 percent, he added.
According to Kari Stolbow, the airline’s director for South Asia, the passenger load factor on the Helsinki-New Delhi sector was an impressive 91 percent in January and 84 percent in February.
“These are encouraging signs for us. Our strategy of keeping the fares competitive, despite the difficult year that 2009 was, seems to have paid off,” Stolbow said.
“In March, we were pleasantly surprised when we found a passenger load factor as high as 97 percent during the first 15 days,” he said. “So the first logical step now would be to make the Helsinki-Delhi service a seven-day operation.”
The carrier currently flies six days a week to and out of the Indian capital. While there is no service from Helsinki to the national capital on Mondays, there is no flight out of here on Tuesdays.
- Finnair serves seven more Indian cities in pact with Kingfisher - Aug 28, 2011
- Pact with Kingfisher sees Finnair's Asia traffic look up - Sep 12, 2011
- Finnair deploys all-new fleet as traffic to India spurts - Mar 21, 2010
- Finnair's April traffic up 10 percent - May 08, 2012
- Finnair's March traffic up 11.6 percent - Apr 23, 2012
- Asian operations lift Finnair's load factor - Jun 13, 2010
- Finnair ties up with Kingfisher for smooth connectivity to Europe - Dec 19, 2010
- Finnair to start daily Helsinki-Delhi service from January - Sep 07, 2010
- Finnair traffic grows 3 percent in February - Mar 13, 2011
- Kingfisher Airlines, Finnair enhance frequent flyer cooperation - Mar 18, 2011
- India demand spurs daily Delhi service by Finnair (Lead) - Sep 07, 2010
- Finnair's business class passengers grew last month - Jan 09, 2010
- Finnair advance bookings surge by 25 percent - Feb 18, 2012
- Finnair reports strong Asian growth - Jul 10, 2010
- Finnair's July traffic up 23.9 percent - Aug 16, 2011
Tags: airline, asian traffic, capacity management, finnair, helsinki, India, indian traffic, logical step, New Delhi, nordic, passenger load factor, passenger movement, percentage points, seven day, signs, six days, South Asia, spokesperson