Summer fares improve Finnair's passenger load factors for July 2004

In July 2004, Finnair scheduled traffic increased by 31.6% compared to July last year. Passenger load factor was 72.3%, up 5.0 percentage points. The airlines stated that higher load factors were mainly derived from summer fares, which were lower than last summer. The major driver in growth of demand was 22.5% increase in capacity.

All Finnair Group airlines altogether transported 629,600 passengers, which is 16.8% more than a year ago. The total traffic (RPK's), summing up both scheduled and leisure traffic, increased by 25.7%, while the capacity (ASK = available seat kilometres) was up by 18.7%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 77.1%, 4.3 points higher than last year.

Departure punctuality of scheduled flights was 89.0% (based on a fifteen minute standard), 3.0 points lower than in July 2003. Including leisure flights departure punctuality was 87.8% (-3.4 p.p). Arrival punctuality of scheduled flights was 90.6% and that of all operations was 88.6%.

Finnair's Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero Airlines AS, carried 8,800 passengers (+24.0%) on Tallinn-Helsinki route. During July, Stockholm-based Nordic Airlink carried 21,500 passengers on its Scandinavian routes. The company's capacity was reduced due to the holiday season.

Scheduled traffic

In scheduled traffic (international + domestic) revenue passenger kilometres increased by 31.6%. The change in capacity was +22.5%. Passenger load factor was 72.3%, 5.0 percentage points higher than last year.

In scheduled international traffic, the total number of passengers was up by 23.4%, partly affected by adding Nordic Airlink figures. Capacity in ASKs was +25.2%, while RPKs increased by 33.5%.

In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 8.2%, and RPKs increased by 17.0%, the passenger load factor was 68.3%, up 5.2 points from previous year.

In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity remained around the 2003 level. Change in RPKs was +4.7%, and passenger load factor for July was 88.0%, 3.9 points higher than previous year.

In Asian scheduled traffic, the capacity increase was 65.9% mainly due to adding frequencies to Shanghai and Osaka since the beginning of June. The passenger traffic was up by 72.5%. Passenger load factor was 75.4%, 2.9 percentage points up.

Domestic scheduled traffic increased by 7.6% on a capacity decrease of -4.1%. Passenger load factor improved by 6.5 percentage points to 60.6%.

Leisure traffic

ASKs for leisure traffic increased in July by 7.2%, and RPKs increased by 12.3%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 93.7%, 4.2 points higher than last year.

Cargo

Cargo traffic increased by 32.3% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was +22.3%. Increase in Asian traffic was 59.8%. Volume in European traffic increased by 1.7%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume increased by 2.0%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights increased over 500%. The cargo load factor was 57.5%. The cargo load factor in the Far Eastern traffic was 68.1% and in the North Atlantic traffic 68.0%.