Helsinki Over the last decade, it has established itself as one of Europe's leading hubs. The airline Finnair had played on Finland's exceptional geographical position. At the very northern tip of Europe, Helsinki offers much shorter flight times to Asia than other airports.. Hence the Finnish national airline's strategy to develop flights to 16 Asian cities. These include many exclusives such as Busan in Korea, Sapporo in Japan and Xi'an in China. From Helsinki, Asian passengers could then reach more than 70 European destinations as well as North America.
Of course, there is still the possibility of transiting via the airport in the Finnish capital, but the vast majority of connections have now disappeared. Finnair now only flies to four Asian cities on very limited frequencies. The company is still landing in Bangkok, Seoul, Shanghai-Pudong and Tokyo-Narita. With connections to 23 European cities, 13 Finnish cities and New York.
Network attrition has therefore decimated Helsinki's air traffic. According to statistics from the operator Finavia, the country's main airport handled some 5.05 million passengers in 2020 compared with 21.86 million the previous year. This represents a year-on-year fall of 77.3%. The share of international traffic fell by 6.5 points. International traffic accounted for 80.2% of total passengers last year, compared with 86.6% a year earlier. Transfer traffic fell by 80% from 3.57 million to 0.71 million passengers in one year.
Asia in troubled waters
Asia recorded 573,296 passengers last year, down 79.7% year-on-year.. Vietnam turned in the best performance, with a contained decline to 24%. But the result is skewed by the line's seasonal nature. The Thailand also benefited from the strong influx of European passengers in the first three months of 2020. This limited the fall in traffic to 61%. In 2020, the Kingdom became the leading destination in terms of passenger numbers. departing from Helsinki, surpassing Japan and China. China was the destination most affected with a 85,9% due to the total closure of its airspace from the end of January. The fact that only one flight a week has been operated since then continues to contribute to the depressed traffic situation in China. Hong Kong is undergoing a similar development with regard to severe flight restrictions.
As for Finnair, it indicated for February that its capacity in Asia was down 86.9% in February while the number of passengers was 98.2% lower. The load factor was a record low at... 10.7%!
In Europe, the company reported slightly better results in February. Finnair recorded a fall in passenger numbers of 93.6% and a load factor of 39.9%..
In the midst of this turmoil, however, the company received some good news. On 17 March, Finnair and the Finnish government signed an agreement on a new airline. hybrid loan from 400 million euros maximum to support its business. The European Commission had given the go-ahead for this aid a few days earlier.
