Finnair has asked its customers how they feel about traveling by air again. Half of them were already thinking about leisure trips by air, and almost nine out of ten customers said they expected to fly at least once within the next year. The respondents were over 3000 Finnair Loyalty program customers.
“We expect air travel to start gradually recovering from July onwards – customers are clearly looking forward to future travels”, says Ole Orvér, Finnair Chief Commercial Officer.
Finnair will start operating to some 40 European and Asian destinations in July and will gradually increase frequencies and routes as demand recovers. Finnair’s focus in recent years has been on connecting Europe and Asia.
Before the pandemic, Finnair operated scheduled flights to Japan, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and India.
Main concern for travel: 77 % mentioned removing travel restrictions to be a prerequisite for their air travel. Many European countries are easing or removing travel restrictions during the summer.
People are already planning both leisure and business trips. Germany and Spain were named most often as the destinations for the next trip. Asia was named as leisure destination by over one fifth of the respondents, and over one fifth of the respondents were planning a business trip to Asia.
In Asia, China, Japan and Thailand were the most popular Asian destinations.
The survey showed that the corona pandemic has brought new criteria for choosing an airline. The top three drivers for choosing an airline included the airline’s ability to ensure customer wellbeing and health during the trip, ticket prices, and flight schedules.
Aircraft cleaning and the possibility to ensure good hand hygiene were mentioned as the most important means for easing the concerns of travel safety. Also, some 65% of the respondents said that a requirement to wear a mask would ease their concerns either a moderate amount, a lot or a great deal.
Finnair has introduced several measures to safeguard customer health and safety, says Orvér.
“By wearing face masks, we protect each other from possible droplet transmission, and masks are a requirement for both customers and crew.”
“93% of the respondents were confident in Finnair’s ability to meet their needs in this time of uncertainty”, said Orvér.
