Finnair has postponed the delivery of the remaining three committed A350-900 aircraft. The agreement is a part of Finnair’s comprehensive measures to ensure that the company can emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic as a strong airline. The aircraft were originally scheduled for delivery from Q2 2021 to Q2 2022, and on average, the new delivery dates for the aircraft will be 24 months later than originally scheduled.
As a result of the deferrals, Finnair’s cash flow from investing activities will be approximately €200 million less in 2021.
“Finnair has been in intensive negotiations with all of its suppliers during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeking to reduce expenditures in order to support our ramp-up plans when traffic recovers. This agreement will give us more flexibility to deploy the existing fleet more efficiently and improve cash flow,” says Christine Rovelli, senior vice president, finance and fleet management at Finnair.
Finnair has ordered a total of 19 new A350-900 XWB aircraft from Airbus, of which 16 have now been delivered.
Meanwhile, has reported a fall in passenger traffic in October, although cargo figures remain strong.
In October, Finnair carried 100,800 passengers, which is 92.0% less than in the corresponding period of 2019 and 12.8% less than in September 2020. The COVID-19 impact, including the exceptionally strict travel restrictions imposed by Finland, still affected all passenger traffic figures. It was visible especially in the North Atlantic figures, which had no scheduled flights in October.
The overall capacity measured in available seat kilometres (ASK) decreased in October by 88.5% year-on-year. Finnair operated 76 daily flights (cargo-only included) on average which was 21.1% compared to October 2019. The differences between capacity figures are explained by the shorter operated flights on average and by smaller operated aircraft compared to October 2019. Finnair's traffic measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) decreased by 95.6%. The passenger load factor (PLF) decreased by 50.7% points to 31.6%.
Available scheduled cargo tonne kilometres decreased by 87.4% year-on-year and revenue scheduled cargo tonne kilometres decreased by 81.9%, both due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on scheduled flights. However, cargo related available tonne kilometres decreased by 76.7% and revenue tonne kilometres decreased by 65.3% and they both include also the cargo-only flights operated between Europe and Asia as well as Europe and North America. The total cargo tonnes were up by 26.1% from September 2020 due to continued strong demand for the cargo capacity. As a result, the cargo load factor was still clearly higher than in the corresponding period of 2019.