Finnair sees EX-YU market potential


Finland's national carrier says it sees potential in the growing former Yugoslav market, particularly among leisure travellers coming from Asia. As a result, the airline will boost frequencies within its limited network in the region and plans to operate up to eight weekly flights from Helsinki to Dubrovnik, five weekly to  Split, as well as two weekly services to Pula next summer. Furthermore, the airline will maintain its four weekly seasonal service to Ljubljana but says it is “carefully following” potential destinations in other countries in the region as competition from rival airlines continues to grow. Norwegian Air Shuttle now serves Dubrovnik, Split, Pula and Pristina out of the Finnish capital over the summer, while Croatia Airlines commenced seasonal flights between Zagreb and Helsinki this year.

Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News, Finnair Manager, Satu Haataja, said, "Slovenia and Croatia are very popular leisure destinations from Finland. A lot of the travel is point to point but we do see an increase in transfer traffic as well, those destinations are becoming increasingly popular among our Asian customers, particularly from Japan". The airline added, “The Croatian market serves as a great destination for Finnair customers both from Northern Europe and Asia. We have also seen increasing numbers of passengers from Croatia using Finnair on their trips. Demand for Croatian destinations has been growing year by year and we have increased our flights to the area consequently”.

Finnair’s Ljubljana service has also proven popular with travellers from Asia, with the Finnish carrier handling an average of over 30.000 passengers on the seasonal route each year. “Ljubljana is developing well and we hope that someday it will be feasible to operate there year round. We actively follow many markets where we could either increase frequencies or make them year round operations”, the airline said. The Oneworld alliance member, which has carved out a niche with direct flights to Asia, says future expansion in the former Yugoslavia will highly depend on demand from the Far East. “For the time being, the demand from our Asian units has been to Croatian coastal areas. However, when Asian tour operators create more products for the former Yugoslav area we want to be their first choice of airline and then it will be very important to have multiple entry and exit points such as Belgrade for example. At the same time we are following carefully the corporate travel market development to and from the area, because those travelling for work are one of our focus groups”.

Finnair flies between Asia, Europe and North America with an emphasis on fast connections via Helsinki, carrying more than ten million passengers annually. Its network connects nineteen cities in Asia and seven in North America with over 100 destinations in Europe.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:02

    Nice....
    A iz SPU su rekli kako nece poticati nocne dolaske.
    A niti ce ih odbijati......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:28

      ??

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:24

      Sto ti je tu nejasno?
      SPU od sljedece godine je operativan 24/7.
      Sto je tu nejasno?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous12:25

      Kakve to veze ima sa temom danas? A i ranije je objvljeno ovde.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous13:35

      Ima
      SPU je zagusen a ovi dupliraju.
      Sad zbroji 2 i 2

      Delete
    5. Anonymous19:07

      Finnair ne duplira u SPU

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:08

    Oh come on Finnair. You have been flying to Ljubljana for 8 years now and you still haven't gone year round!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:20

      In the article they say that there is simply not enough demand for these routes outside of summer.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:01

      The market is too small. It is a very small country and ZAG catchment area is huge. ;)

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:10

    Pula is expecting great growth : norwegian, finnair, couple of new ex soviet carriers and first JP base in Croatia.
    Congratulations

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:09

      JP base???

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:06

      Where did you find that about JP base?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:42

      Some anon posted yesterday under JP article

      Delete
    4. Anonymous12:32

      Yeah, sure. lol

      Delete
    5. Anonymous14:16

      I wouldn't be surprised. JP could have made a deal with tour operators. They have the extra capacity.

      Delete
    6. Yes sure but is this job confirmed and are there any sources or just wishes resp. rumors

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:10

    It would be nice o see more of them around ex-Yu. There are hardly any One world airlines around.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:04

      With exception to QR I think there are none in BEG and SJJ.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:12

    Transited through Helsinki last year. Great looking airport. Nice experience.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous09:13

    Well if they were smart enough they could be a transfer airline from ex-Yu to North America.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:19

      They could but ex-Yu and the Balkans in general is not a priority for them.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:26

      Pity

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:25

    Ozbiljna kompanija, sjajna usluga, ok cene i odlicna i sve mladja flota.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous09:37

    Has anyone flown with Finnair? What are their service and fares like?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:42

      Check their website for fairs

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:59

      And after all the roller coaster fun and games, swing over to the fares section as well :-)

      I flew with them twice intra-Europe, not bad, but nothing spectacular. A decent, solid product and Vantaa would definitely be a good alternative transit point from BEG. Besides the Far East, I could also see potential to North America as well as Scandinavia from these parts.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:03

      Are they like most European airlines and offer pay on board in economy?

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:56

      On my short flights everything offered was buy-on-board.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:37

    Finnair in BEG would be fantastic. Glad they are thinking about it. There are hardly any oneworld airlines in BEG.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:59

      I really doubt they could do something in BEG. There is basically no O&D demand and transfers to long haul flights from HEL would have to be seriously cheap in order for someone to use it instead of FRA, AMS, CDG, LHR and IST.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:06

      Doesn't look promising.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:02

      Belgrade should first attract companies like Air France, KLM, British Airways and TAP Portugal

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:08

      I don't see how would it be possible to launch any route to Finland from BEG. Simply, not enough demand.. Neither o&d nor transit

      Delete
    5. Nemjee11:30

      What would we gain from having Air France or British Airways in Belgrade? Both CDG and LHR are well covered by Air Serbia and the entry of either one of these two would not lower the prices since they would just create a duopoly with Air Serbia.

      I would understand if you said that we need DY from LGW or U2 from ORY.

      KLM won't be launching Belgrade since they have Air Serbia and Transavia with combined 16 weekly flights during the summer months.

      Finnair will make sense once Serbia and China deepen their ties some more. They could make it work in about two, three years.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:35

      There is no need for BA, AF or KL in BEG. BEG is well connected with LON (JU, W6) and for connecting flights there many other hubs in Europe.
      AF and KL have code share with JU so flying with JU to CDG or AMS is the same as AF and KL would fly to BEG.

      Finnair did not say that there is demand for direct flights from HEL to BEG. They recongized BEG as "entry and exit point" for Far East travellers showing they expect biggest airport in ex Yu to get most flights from Far East to ex-Yu region.
      HU flights to BEG are for Finnair clear sign how the market will be developed

      Delete
    7. Anonymous12:56

      BA is worse than easyJet!

      Delete
    8. Anonymous14:03

      BA is also very expensive.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous19:00

      Belgrade should first attract companies like Air France, KLM, British Airways and TAP Portugal

      Ево га опет овај. Као онај (а можда је исти?) што нас је месецима малтретирао својим прогнозама раста док му није стављена рампа, сада нас овај стално терорише истим питањем. Добронамерни коментатори су много пута објаснили зашто нема разлога да ове компаније сада крену да лете за Београд, али овај и даље наставља да нас мучи. Докле више?

      Delete
  10. Anonymous09:45

    Brac will be good..

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous10:00

    they could get a piece of the BEG-LED and Russia market.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:07

      It already served directly by JU, plus there are convenient options with Aeroflot and the LH group. Don't see who would fly them instead.

      Delete
    2. Nemjee11:24

      Air Serbia's direct flight is quite pricey, I have noticed regular fares are rarely under €300 return. Even their promos are quite high.


      My guess is that Finnair is monitoring the arrival of Chinese tourists to Serbia. That will be the biggest stimulus for them.
      Given their extensive network in China, I am sure they already cooperate with many local tour operators who could help them fill those flights to Belgrade.

      That said, I doubt they'll be landing in Serbia any time soon. It will be really difficult for them to compete with other well established carriers such as Aeroflot, Turkish Airlines, Qatar...

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:07

      kako da ne monitoring .... as we are that important

      Delete
    4. Nemjee13:28

      Who is this 'we' you are referring to?

      Delete
  12. Anonymous11:06

    They don't take enough risks. They should have launched Zagreb but now it's too late with Croatia Airlines flying the route.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:11

      And each year OU is operating more and more charter flights to Finland

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:20

      If they can compete against DY on flights from HEL to the coast, why not against OU to ZAG?

      Delete
    3. Maybe there is not enough demand for point to point and especially since Emirates connects Zagreb with Asia and the rest...not sure...

      Delete
  13. Anonymous11:09

    I'm surprised Norwegian flies HEL-PRN. Are there a lot of Kosovars in Finalnd?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:19

      Yes

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:02

      its one weekly only

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:21

      Considering there are no flights to much larger cities in ex-Yu I don't think it's that bad.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous11:10

    I see still 5w flights SPU-HEL as this summer.
    Can someone confirm 10w?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13:22

      ok, 5w is right..
      @ ex-YU: DBV is 8w (that was correct in the 1st edition)

      Delete
  15. Anonymous11:52

    I'm surprised someone on here hasn't already suggested Helsinki - Nis :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:18

      I'm surprised you suggested HEL-INI, how's that?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:57

      Tourism my friend!
      Serbia very good destination, booming!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous14:01

      18% more tourists in the first nine months.

      Delete
    4. Why not, they flew charters twice per week to Ohrid few years ago.Although, don't know exactly what happened, since their Embraers were full the first summer when they started.
      http://www.ohridnews.com/vesti/31492

      Delete
  16. Anonymous13:06

    Finnair can be lucky that airports in FIN are so expensive. there is almost no FR or Wizz flights

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13:22

      True

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:26

      They have DY though. That said Finland has only 4.5 million people and they are spread out through a large territory

      Delete
    3. Anonymous00:21

      5,5 million and they actually aren't spread over a large territory...most of them live in the south, Helsinki metropolitan area basically.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous18:53

    It's marvellous that they will be flying to Croatian coast so frequently. I expect that ZAD will get some flights as well in the near future as SPU is too crowded.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:01

      To this end Brac airport will also be an attractive destination for Finnair in the near future. 3 new hotels are scheduled to be built there soon by Jako Andabak's Bluesun company. Pre- and post-season might be just the right time for Finnish tourists.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous20:02

      Od sljedece sezone, SPU operativan 24/7

      Delete
    3. Anonymous21:07

      That will be used only for emergency landings. I doubt that carriers will be landing there past 11 pm. Plenty of resistance to that from the local community.

      Delete

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