Finnair’s European traffic grew by 20 per cent

Finnair scheduled traffic increased by 14.2% compared to April last year. In April particularly, the growth was driven by European traffic, where the amount of revenue passenger kilometers increased by 20.2 per cent compared to April last year. The demand was positively influenced by new openings in Europe: Bucharest, Gdansk, Nuremberg, Lisbon and Ljubljana. Asian traffic has increased during the early part of the year by over 30 per cent compared to the previous year. In April, the growth increased by 18.2 per cent due to heavy maintenance of long-haul fleet. May figures are also affected by heavy maintenance. Estimated growth in Asian traffic for the whole year remains in 30 per cent. Thanks to 76-100-seater Embraer planes, capacity on domestic routes have been allocated more precisely than before. This has been seen as capacity cuts and improved passenger load factor, which rose 1.5 p.u. to 62.1 per cent. Passenger load factor in Finnair scheduled traffic was on the previous year’s level 73.8 per cent. Also the number of passengers carried was on the same level as year before 656 030. The average span of the trips was expanded. Finnair traffic, measured in passenger kilometers for all airlines of the Group, increased by 9.3% in April, while the capacity was up by 10.1%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 74.7%, 0.6 points lower than last year. All Finnair Group airlines altogether transported 728 946 passengers. Finnair's Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero AS, carried 30 810 passengers (- 54.8%) on routes between Helsinki and the Baltic capitals and within Southern Finland, during April. Stockholm-based FlyNordic carried 85 915 passengers (- 14.0%). Aero and FlyNordic figures are respectively included in Finnair Group total figures. Arrival punctuality of scheduled flights was 86.4% (based on a fifteen minute standard), 1.1 points lower than in January 2006. Including leisure flights arrival punctuality was 85.6% (-0.5 p.p). Punctuality has improved significantly since beginning of the year. Scheduled traffic In scheduled traffic (international + domestic) revenue passenger kilometres increased by 14.2%. The change in capacity was 14.3%. Passenger load factor was 73.8%, 0.1 percentage points lower than last year. In scheduled international traffic, total number of passengers was up by 8.3%. Capacity in ASKs was 19.1%, while RPKs increased by 17.8%. In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 19.9%, and as RPKs increased by 20.2%, the passenger load factor was 69.4%, up 0.2 points from previous year. In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity increased by 2.6%. Change in RPKs was - 1.1%, and passenger load factor for April was 83.0%, 3.1 points lower than previous year. In Asian scheduled traffic, capacity increase was 20.6%. The passenger traffic was up by 18.2%. Passenger load factor was 80.4%, 1.6 percentage points down. Domestic scheduled traffic decreased by 17.1% on a capacity decrease of 19.2%. Passenger load factor increased by 1.5 percentage points to 62.1%. Leisure traffic ASKs for leisure traffic decreased in April by 6.5%, and RPKs decreased by 8.6%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 79.1%, 1.9 points lower than last year. Cargo Cargo traffic decreased by 3.2% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was 2.1%. Increase in Asian traffic was 16.9%. Volume in European traffic decreased by 21.5%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume increased by 2.6%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights decreased by 35.4%. The cargo load factor was 49.1%. The cargo load factor in the Far Eastern traffic was 64.0% and in the North Atlantic traffic 79.8%. Cargo traffic suffers from imbalance in demand between Europe and Asia. The demand is healthy from Asia to Europe, but over-capacity in the Scandinavian market has pressed cargo load factor in Europe-Asia traffic. Full traffic performance data available at http://www.finnairgroup.com/linked/en/sijoittajat/Monthly_traffic_dataAPR2007EN.pdf Finnair Plc Communications 08.05.2007 Additional information: Mr. Lasse Heinonen, SVP & CFO, tel. +358 9 818 4950 Mr. Christer Haglund, SVP Corporate Communications, tel. +358 9 818 4007 Mr. Taneli Hassinen, Director, Investor Relations, tel. +358 9 818 4976 Mr. Petteri Kostermaa, VP Traffic Planning, tel. +358 9 818 8504 Mr. Timo Riihimäki, Vice President. Cargo, tel. +358 9 818 5487