Robust growth in Finnair's Asian traffic

Finnair scheduled traffic increased by 11.8% compared to May 2004. Demand on Finnair's Asian routes during the first five months of the year has been approximately 20% higher than during the respective period last year. In May Asian traffic grew by 19.7%. Finnair's Stockholm-based subsidiary airline flynordic exceeded monthly passenger numbers of 100,000 for the first time in its history. The passenger load factor for all scheduled traffic was 64.3%, up 2.2 percentage points. Number of passengers carried was 599,300, up 2.5%.

Finnair's total traffic increased by 10.5% while capacity was up by 7.5% resulting in a passenger load factor of 68.1%, 1.8 points higher than last year. All Finnair Group airlines together transported 707,300 passengers, which is 2.8% more than a year ago.

Departure punctuality of scheduled flights was 92.1% (based on a fifteen minute standard), 1.7 points lower than in May 2004. With leisure flights included, departure punctuality was 91.3% (-1.6 p.p). Arrival punctuality of scheduled flights was 92.5% and that of all operations was 91.3%. 

Finnair's Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero AS, carried 64,700 passengers (+471.8%) on routes between Helsinki and the Baltic capitals and within Southern Finland. During May, flynordic continued to gain market share and carried 102,200 passengers (+40.4%) on its routes.

Scheduled traffic

In scheduled traffic (international + domestic) revenue passenger kilometres increased by 11.8%. The change in capacity was +8.0%. Passenger load factor was 64.3%, 2.2 percentage points higher than last year.

In scheduled international traffic, the total number of passengers was up by 10.2%. Capacity in ASKs was +9.6%, while RPKs increased by 14.4%. Passenger load factor was 2.8 percentage points higher than last year.

In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 1.1%, and as RPKs increased by 5.4%, the passenger load factor was 60.2%, up 2.5 points from the previous year.

In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity increased by 44.2%. Change in RPKs was +44.0%, and the passenger load factor for May was 82.5%, 0.1 points lower than in 2004.

In Asian scheduled traffic, the capacity increase was 16.2% mainly due to adding frequencies to Shanghai and Osaka since the beginning of June. Passenger traffic was up by 19.7%. Passenger load factor was 69.8%, 2.0 percentage points up.

Domestic scheduled traffic decreased by 12.7% on a capacity decrease of 4.6%. Passenger load factor decreased by 4.6 percentage points to 49.5%.

Leisure traffic

ASKs for leisure traffic increased in May by 5.8%, and RPKs increased by 6.5%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 84.1%, 0.6 points higher than last year.

Cargo

Cargo traffic decreased by 0.2% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was +7.1%. The increase in Asian traffic was +8.5%. Volume in European traffic increased by 1.5%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume increased by 31.8%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights decreased by 30.4%. The cargo load factor was 62.2%. The cargo load factor in the Asian traffic was 78.8% and in the North Atlantic traffic 66.5%.

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