Finnair to resume daily flights between Helsinki-Delhi in Jan

Mirroring the return in passenger demand, Nordic carrier Finnair today said it will resume daily service between New Delhi and Helsinki from January next year, up from the six flights a week it operates now.

"We will start daily service between Helsinki and New Delhi from January as there is good demand from the Indian market," Finnair Senior Vice President Public Affairs and Corporate Communications Christer Haglund told reporters here.

Finnair reduced its service to New Delhi from seven to six days a week earlier this year. Two years ago, it suspended the service to Mumbai because of poor demand.

However, Asian routes continue to drive growth in the airline, which plans to increase service to Hong Kong to 12 flights a week from daily now, besides start flying daily to Singapore from next year.
    
Asia accounts for nearly half of the airline's revenue.
    
Over 100 Finnish companies have operations in India and several Indian firms have set up shop in Finland. Besides, the carrier hopes to carry traffic between India and the rest of Europe and to the US.
    
Asked whether the airline, which entered India in 2006, is also planning to restart service to Mumbai, Haglund said, "We are analysing the situation."
    
Haglund further said that the Finnish carrier is looking forward to making use of its OneWorld alliance partner Kingfisher Airlines' network to offer more destinations to customers.
    
Under the present bilateral air services agreement between India and Finland, Finnair can operate daily services to three Indian cities.
    
Recently, Finnair signed a four-year agreement with aircraft lessor ILFC for acquiring two Airbus planes for long-haul flights to New Delhi and other destinations in Asia.
    
The airline registered a turnover growth of 11 per cent to 474 million euros (around Rs 2,800 crore) during the April-June period this year compared to the corresponding period last year, mainly on increased traffic volume.