Finnair is planning a massive expansion in flights to India, with the frequency being quadrupled to 12 flights every week.
As part of the development, the airline will launch a non-stop route to Mumbai in June 2007, which will be served from Helsinki five days a week. The current three-weekly frequency for flights to the Indian capital Delhi will also be increased to daily.
“It will be extremely hard, if not impossible for airlines to secure new arrival and departure slots at Indian airports in the coming years,” says Henrik Arle, Finnair’s deputy chief executive officer. “By adding to its Indian scheduled traffi c just now, Finnair is ensuring its presence in these fast growing markets.”
As a result of the expansion, the airline will significantly increase its cargo capacity to Asia. The flights to Delhi, which previously used the MD11 aircraft, will now operated with a fleet of A340s, increasing capacity from 15 to 25 tonnes. The Mumbai route will also use the same aircraft.
The news has received a positive response from Finnair’s cargo GSSA, Global Aviation Group, which has represented Finnair before the airline began direct services from Delhi in October 2006.
“We are all excited with Finnair’s announcement that it is expanding its India operations,” said Prabodh Tipnis, executive director, Global Aviation.
“Since the inception of services last year we have been full on most flights and demand has been well-spread throughout Scandinavia (60%), CIS (8%) and Europe (32%). Most of this traffic has originated from the Delhi region, however. With the addition of direct services from Mumbai to Helsinki, we will be able to continue our focus on transhipment traffic for the entire Finnair system over a much wider area of India. We expect the CIS to be particularly popular, assisted by Finnair’s excellent scheduled road feeder network,” he added.
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