Finnair launches faster and more frequent flights from Asia to Europe to serve the fast-growing business from the East.
Finland’s newly extended Helsinki-Vantaa Airport has made Finnair to start a new trend in flying from Asia to Europe. Because 57% of the passengers are on flights to and from Asia, the airport expands its international “Asia Terminal” to save time and less fuss and to serve the fast-growing business from the East. Hence, the Asians can save their time flying and get through the airport faster by using the Helsinki link to Europe, where traveling between Helsinki and Bangkok takes about nine hours and 20 minutes and six hours for Beijing-Helsinki.
The Asia Terminal is the latest phase of the airport’s campaign to match passengers’ preferences equipped with a sufficient number of gates for planes, plenty of luggage belts and speedy immigration lines. Helsinki Civil Aviation chief Mikko Talvite says 17 million passengers a year are expected by 2010, and the airport will expanded further once that number is exceeded.
Finnair’s Plc’s vice president for networking and planning, Petteri Kostermaa, says that the airline launches its plans based on customers’ demands in which the plans include routing, network, frequency and timing of flights. The plans aim to minimize traffic and maximize passengers for the airline.
Despite the increase of fuel prices, Finnair will shift from daily flights to Bangkok to 10 treks a week in October in order to fulfill the growing demand on both ends of the route. It will also add Guangzhou to its destination list, joining Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Osaka and Shanghai.
