Finnair saw an 8% rise in passengers travelling between Asia and Europe in 2010, but said the volcanic ash crisis and December strikes had a negative impact on overall growth.
The Finnish carrier carried 4% fewer passengers in 2010 than in 2009, mainly due to restrictions on flights due to the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, and to 10 days of strike action by Finnair cabin crew in December last year.
Finnair's CFO Erno Hildén, said the boost in revenue from ticket sales on Asian routes had been mainly due to a rise in demand from business travellers.
“We have done well in achieving growth in Asian traffic in line with our strategy, and the price level of tickets has also developed more favourably,” he said.
Unit revenues per passenger kilometer, a measure of yield from ticket sales, increased by 9% last year, pushed up by a 15% rise in the third quarter.
The Finnish carrier has been steadily growing its network of Asian routes from Europe, via its Helsinki hub.
Last year, Finnair carried more than 1.2 million passengers between Europe and Asia, representing nearly 20% of its total scheduled traffic.
Finnair this week started daily flights from Helsinki to Delhi, by adding two additional weekly flights.
In recent weeks, Finnair has also increased flights to Osaka, Nagoya and Seoul.
From May, the airline will add flights to Singapore and in June it will increase the number of flights to Hong Kong.
www.finnair.com