Terming India as a priority destination, Nordic carrier Finnair is soon likely to start flights to other Indian cities from Helsinki in addition to Delhi. Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad are under consideration for starting services, Kari Stolbow, director, Indian sub-continent, Finnair said.
And, to make the ongoing route and proposed flight routes more profitable, Stolbow said that the airline would work closely with leading corporate houses like Wipro, Tata Consultancy and Nokia, which have establishments in Finland, to increase the number of corporate flyers. He also said that the recently-launched cargo services between Mumbai and Helsinki is also turning into a successful initiative.
Terming Delhi-Helsinki route as profitable, he said the airline?s commercial income increased by 25% in the first six months of this year compared to corresponding period last year. He, however, declined to share details of earnings citing compliance issues.
Finnair had launched direct flight between Delhi and Helsinki on October 30, 2007. The carrier is running a flight on the route six days a week except for Tuesday. The flights between Mumbai and Helsinki were suspended in March 2009 due to fall in traffic, he said. The major share of Finnair passengers from India are from business sector. ?Corporate passengers constitute 75%while leisure travellers form 25% of our traffic from India,? he said.
Stolbow also said that Finnair has forged a tie-up with Kingfisher to mobilise more passengers to Finland from different cities within India. In a new initiative to shore up world-wide revenue Finnair has chosen seven ?quality hunters?, including an Indian, to assess its flight operations and quality of services routes for improvement.
