Finnish carrier Finnair, which offers daily flights between India and Europe, today said its Asian traffic grew 27 per cent last month and demand for business class seats were clearly better.
“Finnair’s traffic is picking up. Growth is coming from scheduled traffic and particularly from outside Finland,” the airline, which flies daily between Delhi and Helsinki, said in a statement.
Overall, scheduled traffic grew in March by 19 per cent compared with March last year. The passenger load factor of scheduled flights rose by more than 12 percentage points.
“The focus of business travel demand has shifted to outside of Finland. Long-haul traffic business class sales in particular are clearly better than before. The price level of flight tickets is still low, however,” said Finnair’s Senior Vice President (Communications) Christer Haglund.
Asian traffic grew in March by 27 per cent. A total of 114,000 passengers travelled on Asian flights. The load factor in Asia traffic was also good in March, at nearly 87 per cent.
The passenger load factor for all traffic was 80 per cent.
“Due to successful capacity management, Finnair’s aircraft are flying fuller than before. Improving the load factor by 12 percentage points is exceptional,” said Haglund.
North American traffic grew by nearly 25 per cent and European traffic by 11 per cent. The load factor on North American flights was 85 per cent and in European traffic 70 per cent.