Finnair seeks partner for European flights
National carrier Finnair is planning major changes to its European routes’ operations. The airline is seeking a business partner for Nordic flights, and possibly all European flights. In the future, Finnair says it plans to focus on long-haul flights, particularly to Asia.
The 89-year-old company is seeking substantial savings from organisational changes to its European operations, which have been creating losses for years.
Finnair says it will start negotiations with “potential partners,” but has not yet disclosed who this might include. However the airline says its new partner should become clear within the next couple of months.
Most of Finnair's local domestic flights are already handled by the British-owned carrier Flybe.
According to CEO Mika Vehviläinen, "Our aim is to create a new Nordic airline that will compete against the current players with cost-efficient, quality products. It would be a carrier with 100-150 planes and it would operate from several different hubs around the Nordic region. Along with Finnair, it would include some market-leading partner."
According to the carrier, joint operations would strengthen Finnair’s position in the Nordic countries. Vehviläinen says that as a small company, Finnair cannot do everything on its own. He notes that Nordic cooperation will also help Finnair's air business to Asia.
30m in the red
The company needs to cut expenses, as its losses have mounted recently. Its last quarterly results revealed that Finnair was 30 million euros in the red.
In August, the air carrier announced it was aiming to save 140 million euros by 2014. Of this sum, Finnair only managed to save about 10 million euros last year.
In related news, on Wednesday, its traditional rival SAS announced it would halt all flights to and from Finland at the end of this month. From then on, they will all be handled by its Blue1 subsidiary.
In late January, low-cost carrier Norwegian Air announced Europe's largest-ever order of new planes.
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