Finnair announces plans for strategy renewal

We are working on a strategy renewal and we hope to communicate more about our direction and the changes it brings in the autumn. Finnair reported that its second-quarter revenue increased by more than 390 per cent year-on-year, from 112 to 550 million euro, as demand for air travel began to normalise and passenger volumes and load factors recovered, particularly in Europe and the United States. Its comparable operating result was similar to the previous year, but remained more than 84 million euro in the red.

The airline pointed out that record-high fuel prices had an adverse cost impact of 126 million euros compared to the previous year, an impact that was compounded by the longer routes necessitated by the closure of Russian airspace.

In 2019, the airline operated about 64 per cent of its active capacity, with the closure of the airspace limiting flights to the traditionally important markets of Japan and South Korea. It was able to provide work for around 600 employees by wet-leasing six per cent of its aircraft capacity to partner airlines.

Finnair was impacted by one crisis after another during the second quarter of 2022, he summarised. The effects of the severe, two-years- and-counting epidemic began to calm as demand recovered, but at the same time we felt the full weight of the war in Ukraine. Finnair believes that its operating results for the entire year will be negatively for the third consecutive year due to the war in Ukraine.

The airline's shares fell by more than nine per cent to 0.41 euros on the Helsinki Stock Exchange on Tuesday, despite a worse-than-expected operating result and muted short-term outlook. The shares lost a third of their value since the beginning of the year.