Finnair symbolizes the renewal of scheduled airlines in europe. Twice this year – the last in November, the Finnish company has raised its earnings expectations. The year 2017 promises to be a good year, with profits expected in excess of 155 million euros. A year earlier, profits were less than 100 million euros. This again falls sheer to the company, that celebrated and, in its own way, the one hundredth anniversary of the independence of Finland on 6 December.
Finnair enjoys even more his or her good health that she has flirted with the abyss six years ago, like most of its counterparts in Europe, due to the high oil prices, competition from low cost carriers and airlines from the Gulf. Between 2011 and 2014, she suffered a severe restructuring plan. “2 000 jobs have been deleted” and the reductions of costs have reached 200 million euros, says Juha Järvinen, commercial director. At the present time, Finnair does not count more than 6 000 employees.
Paradoxically, it is from Asia that came to the salvation of the company, held 55% by the Finnish State. It bet on its privileged geographical situation, on the shortest route to go from Europe to China and Japan. Finnair has made Helsinki a platform of transit, a point of passage between the great european capitals and major asian destinations. A strategy opposite to that of Norwegian, the rival regional. The company’s low-cost Norwegian has, it seems, chose to develop mainly on routes across the atlantic.
For Finnair, it is almost an ” Asian-dependence “. In fact, 50 % of its capabilities are geared towards asian destinations, up from only 8 % to North America. In 2018, the company is also planning to increase its capacity to 9 %, in particular to ” rebalance “…
