Finnair’s February Results Hit By The Impacts Of Strike Action

Earlier today, Finnair shared its financial results for the month of February 2024. While the Finnish flag carrier has generally been going from strength to strength, as exemplified by record-breaking full-year profits in 2023, last month represented a bit of a hiccup for the airline, largely due to strike action.

Fewer passengers despite increased capacity

Generally speaking, recent years have seen airlines’ financial results and performance figures experience consistent growth, as the key players recover from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. However, despite February 2024 having an extra day due to it being a leap year, Finnair was down on several key metrics.

Most notably, its monthly passenger total of 804,700 was lower than the figure achieved for the same month last year by a factor of 2.3%. This was despite overall passenger capacity in terms of available seat kilometers (ASKs) increasing by 3.4% over the same period. That being said, there is, at least, a clear cause for the drop.

Specifically, the oneworld member asserts that “the decrease was mainly caused by a political strike during the first two days of the month, which forced Finnair to cancel circa 550 flights.” As Simple Flying reported at the time, seven Finnish airports completely closed on February 1st and 2nd due to the industrial action.

Other key figures

The drop in Finnair’s passenger numbers also caused its traffic in terms of revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) to fall, albeit by a smaller factor of just 0.8%. Meanwhile, the Finnish flag carrier’s average load factor fell by 3.1% to a figure of 72.1%. There was considerable regional variation on this front, with load factors by market ranging from 60.4% on North Atlantic routes to 79.5% in the Middle East.

Closer to home, Finnair also plays an important role in keeping its home country connected with a diverse network of domestic flights. Last month, the airline transported 188,000 passengers on its internal flights, marking a year-on-year decrease of 4.3%. While RPKs and load factor for this market also experienced slight declines, domestic capacity in terms of ASKs saw an increase, climbing by 1%.

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Another area that saw a year-on-year decline was punctuality, with Finnair’s on-time performance dropping from 79.7% in February 2023 to 75.4% this time around. That being said, it wasn’t all bad news, with increased European and Asian capacity prompting a 10.3% in cargo tonnage. Revenue cargo tonne kilometers also increased in February this year, with last month’s figure being 9.8% higher than in 2023.

The slump has also impacted year-to-date results

Finnair’s February struggles have also had a knock-on effect regarding its year-to-date results. For example, its cumulative passenger total and load factor for January and February fell by 0.9% and 3%, respectively, compared to the first two months of 2023. That being said, there is still plenty of flying yet to be done in 2024, and the carrier will be hoping to offset this blip with stronger performance later in the year.

What do you make of Finnair’s latest results? Did you fly with the carrier last month? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments!