Finnair arms up for a tough fight with Asian carriers

Helsinki based Finnair is merging as one of the top Asian flights competitor as it boosts its passenger capacity to Asia and Australia.

  With the national carrier about to receive their 12th Airbus A350, they plan to boost its monopoly long haul flights from their home base to secondary airports including:

Bangkok (A350-900XWB)

Delhi (A330-300)

Havana (A330-300 to replace A350)

Nagoya (A330-300)

Osaka Kansai (A330-300)

Phuket (A350-900XWB)

Puerto Plata (A330-300 to replace A350)

One thing to note is Finnair's boost to the Helsinki- Hong Kong flight from 10 to 12 weekly. This move strengthens Hong Kong position to be Finnair's hub to Asia and Australia. Just last year Finnair contracted the Hong Kong International Airport to do regular C checks for its A350-900 fleet. With Finnair boosting A359 flights to HK almost to two daily, it is surely benifical to both Finnair and Hong Kong.

Finnair is always a strong competitor in the Asia-Pacific business. Using its monopoly strategies (few International airlines operate long haul flights to helsinki), Finnair successfully connects Asian cities to other major European countries through one stop at Finland.

Finnair is also successful in connecting Australia and European cities through its pit stops at Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore. Although Finnair does not serve the Australian market with its own aircraft, the airline has codeshare arrangements with British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, as well as interline agreements with Japan Airlines, to take passengers from Australia to Asia, where they transfer onto Finnair’s services to Helsinki and beyond.

Currently, Finnair is looking to expand its service to China even further by adding new destinations and increasing frequencies on main routes such as Beijing and Shanghai in the future. The launch of Helsinki to Nanjing route this year marks the airline's 7th Chinese destination.

Also, the airline considers to add new destinations and airports to its network in Japan having Sapporo and Tokyo Haneda as targets. Malaysia and Indonesia are also being reconsidered.

In addition, Finnair yesterday announced European service expansion for winter 2018/19 season, including the launch of of Helsinki – Lyon route with Embraer E190 leased from Nordic Regional Airlines. They also plan to boost frequency to various European destinations next winter.

All photos from the article are from @helsinki.aviation