Finnair CCO Update
Finnair CCO, Juha Jarvinen, tells CAPA about the airline’s new Japan services, the emergence of competition to Japan and the performance of the new San Francisco route. The joint ventures to both Japan and the US are working well for Finnair.
Transcript
Juha Jarvinen:We've been extremely happy with our new Narita additions. So in total we have 11 flights, plus we have a daily flight together with Japan Airlines. So in total to Japan, we actually have 35 flights per week this summer. So that made up the biggest European. So very proud, flights are full, the yields are developing in the right direction. So it was definitely the most successful launch we had this summer. Yes, this summer some of the carriers reduced their frequencies, but we already have seen for the next summer, summer '18, that there are a number of carriers are returning, returning to the Japanese market and also increasing frequencies. So you can never relax. It's going to be another year of competition also in 2018. We launched Helsinki-San Francisco back in June, and actually after the first season, so it became one of our best performing profitability-wise as well as one of our best routes. Of course, it's very strong in the summer. We're currently operating on a seasonal basis, but of course we're looking to extend the season in the future years. But at the moment it's a strong summer route which supplements our other flights to Chicago, New York, and Miami. We have quite a lot of competition from Scandinavia, so we have both Norwegian and SAS flying from Scandinavia to San Francisco. But together, as we're part of the Atlantic joint business with American Airlines, British Airways, and Iberia, so we actually offer all these connections through London and other points in Europe. So we have a lot of options to San Francisco. and California as part of the joint business. We have seen both having definitely an incremental impact on our profitability. The joint businesses give you a much wider network. You are part of the corporate deals in respective markets, and we can actually utilize the strength of each carrier at their respective home markets. So we contribute a lot in Northern Europe and Scandinavia to both Atlantic and the Japanese joint business, and then Japan Airlines, as a perfect example, being the national carrier of Japan, then it gives us very good access to the Japanese corporates. And so that really works both ways, and we've seen improving position for both, both joint businesses this year. Thank you.
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