The Hindu Business Line : Finnair's Asian traffic swells; new India destination likely

NEW DELHI: Finland's flag carrier Finnair, which is into the third year of operations in India, is betting big on Asian market where it saw traffic growing 18.1 per cent last month.

The 85-year-old carrier, which operates 13 flights a week from Helsinki to New Delhi and Mumbai, said in a statement that it carried 124,289 passengers on its Asian flights during the month under review.

In the summer schedule next year, the airline might look at adding a third destination, with sources indicating that it could be either Bangalore or Chennai, where Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia has a manufacturing facility.

In 2006, 40,000 Indians visited the country, last year the figure touched 50,000 and this year 70,000 is expected to pay a visit. Finnair's latest Asian destination was Seoul, where it started flying to in June.

The airline's traffic altogether increased by 11.7 per cent in October, while the capacity was up by 9.2 per cent, resulting in a passenger load factor of 78.2 per cent or 1.7 points higher than last year.

Finnair transported altogether 751 916 passengers, which is 4.8 per cent more than a year ago. - PTI

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