Finnair's March traffic up 11.6 percent

Helsinki, April 23 (IANS) Nordic passenger carrier Finnair Monday reported an increase of 11.6 percent in its passenger traffic in March.

The airline's traffic, which is measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose by 11.6 percent and the overall capacity grew by 3.6 percent on a year-on-year basis, Finnair said.

The passenger carrier's load factor also improved by 5.6 percentage points and was 78.0 percent.

According to the company, the total passenger traffic was impacted by the healthy growth in Asian and European traffic.

In March, the company's Asian traffic capacity grew by 9.2 percent on a year-on-year basis. Asian traffic revenue increased by 14.3 percent. European traffic revenue on the other hand increased by 26.3 percent.

"The positive development in passenger load factors continued in March in all scheduled traffic categories thanks to our successful capacity planning and pricing campaigns," said Erno Hilden, chief financial officer, Finnair.

"We are pleased to see our passenger load factor and unit revenue improving, while increasing our overall capacity at the same time," he added.

In January-March 2012, the company's traffic increased by 9.1 percent, whereas overall capacity rose by 3.9 percent. Passenger load factor improved by 3.6 percentage points and was 76.2 percent.

The company added that its arrival punctuality was at high level in March with 84.6 percent of all scheduled traffic arriving on schedule.