FINNAIR TO GROW FURTHER IN ASIA – SINGAPORE NEWEST DESTINATION
(Warsaw 7.7.2010) Finnair will open a new route to Singapore, where daily flights will commence on May 30, 2011. The company wants to be among the three largest operators in transit traffic between Asia and Europe and is planning on further increasing the number of flights to Asian destinations. In Poland Finnair wants to become the number one choice for Polish passengers to Asia, offering the best connections via Helsinki.
Finnair will be the only airline to offer a daily connection between Singapore and Northern Europe with a time table that suits the needs of business passengers. ”Singapore is one of Asia's most important destinations for business passengers, because the Asian operations of many European companies are centred there”, says Finnair's President and CEO Mika Vehviläinen.
Singapore is also a convenient departure point for travelling to Australia and South East Asia, using Finnair's comprehensive partner network, and offers excellent leisure travel opportunities, including to neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. The Singapore service will be operated with Airbus A340 aircraft.
Vehviläinen confirms that Finnair plans on generally increasing the number of flights to Asia, mainly to destinations that are not yet served daily, and is also looking into flying twice a day to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
”While all customers are important to us, our primary target group is the business passenger travelling between Europe and Asia, irrespective of travel class”, says Mr. Vehviläinen. ”Finnair's hub in Helsinki is ideally located to run traffic between Europe and Asia and we seek alternatives to produce European feeder traffic cost-efficiently”, he continues.
Finnair sees opportunities also on the Polish market.
”We have a two-fold strategy for Poland”, Juhani Nuoramo, Finnair's Sales Director in Warsaw says. ”First, we want to become the number one choice for Polish passengers to Asia when there is no daily direct service, by offering the best connections via Helsinki. Secondly, we want to offer the best schedules for the business traveller between Warsaw and Finland.”
”We already have the fastest connection from Warsaw to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Nagoya and Seoul”, Nuoramo continues. ”With added flights to Asia, we have a great opportunity to improve our position even further.”
In the first five months of 2010, Finnair was the market leader from Warsaw to New Delhi and a combined number three from Warsaw to the nine Asia destinations where it flies.
For more information, please contact:
Radoslaw Podhorecki, Sales Manager Corporate Sales, tel. +48-601-370 178
Petteri Kostermaa, Vice President Network Strategy and Traffic Planning, tel. +358-9-818-8504
Finnair Media Desk tel. +358-9-818 4020 or comms@finnair.fi
Photo bank www.finnair.com/gallery
Finnair on Facebook www.facebook.com/finnair
Finnair Group website www.finnairgroup.com
via.Helsinki www.viahelsinki.com
