Finnair, the national carrier of Finland, is planning to adopt various strategies to bolster its presence in the Indian market. The airline is looking at expanding its operations to Chennai and Bengaluru next year. It is also going to increase its operations on the Delhi-Helsinki route from six days a week to daily services and is considering re-instating its Mumbai-Helsinki flight by end of this year. Furthermore, the airline is also looking at ways to develop synergies with Kingfisher Airlines which recently became a part of oneworld Alliance as it is planning to boost transfer traffic between India and North America via Helsinki.
Starting with three flights a week on Mumbai-Helsinki route, the airline will also be evaluating key routes with South India being prominent on the radar. A source close to the development informed TravelBiz Monitor that the airline is recording healthy passenger load factor on its Delhi-Helsinki route and is observing demand from the Mumbai market. The airline still has flying rights for Mumbai and with the market recovering from global recession, the future looks promising. On the Mumbai route, the airline will initially start three flights a week and later increase the frequency depending on the demand.
Furthermore, the airline is focusing on strengthening its Asian operations to provide direct connectivity for business and leisure travellers from Asia to Europe. Currently operating out of nine Asian destinations, Asia accounts for half of the total revenue for the airline. Last year, the airline serviced 1.16 million passengers to and from Asia (out of the total ten million passengers) which was the highest source of revenue for the airline. As per the source, the airline’s load factor on Asia-Europe route increased by 150 per cent from 2003-2009.
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