Finland’s national carrier is far of being Europe’s largest airline. However, the carrier has succeeded to carve a niche market by specializing into passengers’ traffic between Asia and Europe. Highlights about Finnair’s strategy.
Everyday around noon, flows of Asian passengers are strolling around the departure halls of Helsinki International Airport. This is the consequence of a systematic strategy of Finland’s national air carrier Finnair. Confronted with increasing competition from Scandinavian carriers but also other European airlines, Finnair reshaped its strategy to become almost Europe’s unique specialist on transfer traffic between Asia and Europe. “The total number of passengers between Europe and Asia represents 40 million passengers a year, half of it being transfer traffic. And due to our position at the edge of Northern Europe, we represent the quickest alternative to reach Asia out of Europe. Only St Petersburg in Russia might be closer to Asia than us. But they do not have the advantage of being located within the Schengen area”, explains Joseph Knowles, Communication Specialist at Finnair.
At Helsinki Airport, transfers have been made as convenient as possible. It takes normally only 40 minutes for a connection with the airport offering a range of superb facilities including shops, restaurants, art galleries, kids corners and lounges – also available for economy passengers in transit. And all of it in an elegant and comfortable atmosphere in the pure Scandinavian tradition!
“We used to propose a real sauna for our business class passengers. However, the facility did not attract that much passengers as most of them rarely stay over an hour when in transit,” seems to regret Markku Remes, Development Manager Finnair at Helsinki Airport Customer Service. The empty facility will give partially way to the lounge extension on the non-Schengen side. The sauna cabin might then be preserved while the swimming pool and the relaxation zone around the pool will give way to new developments…
Quick and convenient transfers and shorter flying times (up to two hours less than through other routes) are turning today Helsinki into Northern Europe number 1 airport to Asia. Since 1999, Finnair has systematically built up its Asian network, serving now 11 destinations with Singapore and Chongqing being the two latest additions. Finnair transports annually a total of eight million passengers and from this total, 1.45 million were recorded on Asian routes, the equivalent of 18% of all Finnair’s passengers.
According to data from Finavia, the airport’s operator, the highest number of passengers was recorded on Japanese routes at 413,000, followed by China at 288,000 and Thailand at 245,000.
“There is a very strong connection between Japan and Finland which is difficult to explain. But this is definitely an asset to us as we can easily attract Japanese passengers via Helsinki. They represent 70% of all passengers on board. We offer consequently flights to three destinations in Japan–Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya- and we seriously look at other options. Why not Fukuoka, a major metropolis in Southern Japan? Meanwhile, I can already confirm that Japan Airlines will start flying to Helsinki from next April in partnership with us,” indicates Joseph Knowles.
Like for many other airlines, Finnair also experiences tremendous growth from the Chinese market. The Finnish carrier currently flies to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and since May to Chongqing in Sichuan. “They are more and more Chinese travellers able to travel to Europe. When we look at the most popular connections out of China, Paris, London, Spain and Rome are among the favourites,” adds Mr. Knowles.
With higher purchasing powers available in more Chinese cities, they are plenty of opportunities for Finnair to look at new destinations in China PRC. Finnair studies also the opening of new destinations elsewhere in Asia. “We currently study the possibility to fly to Kuala Lumpur as Malaysia Airlines is becoming a member of Oneworld. But we see also great potential in other cities such as Jakarta or Taipei. However no decision has been taken yet and we are also very dependent of the delivery of our new aircraft the Airbus A350, which has been delayed to 2015. We will then be able to open new destinations including to secondary markets,” Finnair communication representative. Cities which Finnair used to fly in the past, such as Guangzhou and Mumbai could then be reintroduced. Finland’s national carrier has a simple target: double revenues from the Asian market by 2020, currently representing 15% of all total revenue of the Finnair Group.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
