General Review
During a year that was difficult for the whole industry, Finnair expanded its operations by acquiring a Swedish no-frills airline, strengthened its balance sheet but made a loss.
A second quarter collapse in demand and load factors stabilized during the late summer and a gradual recovery, following the ending of the Iraq war and the SARS epidemic, continued during the latter part of the year. Strong demand for Finnair's Asian traffic and the price reform implemented in September contributed to the recovery towards the end of the year. Due to the first part of the year, the passenger load factor for all traffic weakened, however, by 2.3 percentage units to 69.6 per cent during the financial year.
At the beginning of September, Finnair implemented its major price reform. Pricing of domestic and European flights was changed to a flexible flight-based pricing scheme determined by supply and demand that corresponds with customers' expectations and needs.
Finnair has maintained its position among the top European airlines for service quality and punctuality. |