Strong growth in passenger traffic year-on-year and solid load factor – temporary month-on-month decrease due to switch from winter season to summer season
In April, Finnair carried 868,400 passengers, which was 27.7% more than in April 2022 but 8.9% less than in March 2023. Month-on-month figures are, however, not fully comparable as there was one day less in April. April’s temporarily lower passenger numbers are also explained by aircraft maintenance resulting in lower capacity, ending of both Finnish Lapland’s high season after Easter and winter season in Middle Eastern traffic as well as slowing down of corporate travel around Easter.
As the COVID-19 pandemic impacts are fading, April passenger traffic figures improved year-on-year. Further, Russian airspace was closed already during the comparison period, which resulted in route and frequency cancellations in Asian traffic. The negative impact of the Russian airspace closure on Asian passenger traffic figures was, however, visible in April 2023 compared to the pre-pandemic figures. The distance-based reported traffic figures do not take into account longer routings caused by the airspace closure as they are based on Great-Circle distance.
The overall capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASK), increased in April by 17.0% year-on-year but decreased by 1.6% month-on-month. Finnair’s traffic, measured in Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs), increased by 45.7% year-on-year but decreased by 6.1% month-on-month. The Passenger Load Factor (PLF) increased by 14.6% points year-on-year but declined by 3.5% points month-on-month to 74.2%.
The ASK increase in Asian traffic was 149.7% year-on-year. The North Atlantic capacity decreased by 22.2% as the operations between Stockholm and the North American destinations were discontinued at the end of October 2022. In European traffic, the ASKs were up by 4.4% whereas the Middle Eastern capacity increased by 1,015.7% due to the Qatar Airways cooperation commenced in November 2022. The ASKs in domestic traffic decreased by 4.3%.
RPKs increased in Asian traffic by 145.1% year-on-year but decreased in North Atlantic traffic by 21.8%. In European traffic, RPKs increased by 19.6%, in Middle Eastern traffic by 904.2% and in domestic traffic by 3.5%.
In April, the PLF improved particularly in Asian traffic (73.6%) and North Atlantic traffic (64.6%) year-on-year. The PLF was 79.5% in European traffic, 64.5% in Middle Eastern traffic and 76.9% in domestic traffic.
Passenger numbers increased in Asian traffic by 149.7% year-on-year but decreased in North Atlantic traffic by 22.2%. In European traffic, passenger numbers increased by 18.9%, in Middle Eastern traffic by 732.8% and in domestic traffic by 12.8%.
Many cargo figures increased year-on-year in April due to Qatar Airways cooperation and increased Asian capacity even though discontinued operations between Sweden and the US cut North Atlantic cargo capacity. Available scheduled cargo tonne-kilometres increased by 28.4% year-on-year and revenue scheduled cargo tonne-kilometres increased by 11.1%. The total cargo tonnes (including cargo-only operations) increased only by 6.7% year-on-year as there were no cargo-only flights in April 2023. Month-on-month decrease of 6.1% was partly explained by the shorter month.
In April, 86.1% of all Finnair flights arrived on schedule (81.0%).
