Finnair, one of the world's oldest operating airlines, was established on 1st November, 1923. Its operations focus on transporting passengers between Europe and Asia, via Helsinki.

Finnair Group operations cover scheduled passenger traffic and leisure traffic, technical and ground handling operations, catering, travel agencies as well as travel information and reservation services. The number of personnel of Finnair Group is approximately 9 500. The subsidiaries provide air traffic support services or operate in closely related areas.

Finnair's major shareholder is the Finnish government with a 55.8 per cent holding. Other shareholders include insurance companies, various companies and private individuals. Approximately 20 per cent of the shares are owned by foreign shareholders.

Route network
In recent years, Finnair has emerged as a major player in traffic between Europe and Asia. Finnair's intercontinental destinations in Asia include Seoul in South Korea, Delhi in India, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong in China, Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya in Japan and Bangkok in Thailand.

Finnair's European route network offers several daily frequencies to all major European cities. Timetables are built in such a way that the offer quick connections to the Asian flights.

Finnair also flies to 12 destinations within Finland. The domestic route network is one of the densest in the world in relation to population.

In addition to regular scheduled traffic, Finnair operates leisure flights to more than 60 destinations. Leisure traffic flies mainly to holiday resorts in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands, South-East Asia as well in the Caribbean and South America.

Fleet
The Finnair fleet comprises more than 60 aircraft. Thanks to the strong growth in Asian traffic, the long-haul fleet will be renewed in the coming years with Airbus A340, A330, and starting 2014, new technology Airbus A350XWB aircraft. The long-haul fleet renewal will mean the retirement of the Boeing MD-11 aircraft by the end of March 2010.

Finnair already operates one of Europe's youngest and most eco-efficient narrow-body fleets. It comprises Airbus A320 family aircraft, Embraer 170s and Embraer 190s.

At the start of the next decade, Finnair will be operating only three types of aircraft in scheduled traffic as the wide-bodied Airbus will serve longh-haul destinations. Leisure flights are operated with Boeing 757s.

Over eight million passengers
During the calendar year 2008 Finnair carried a total of 8 270 100 passengers.

A total of 6 950 700 passengers were carried on scheduled passenger traffic routes and 1 470 600 on domestic routes. The number of passengers on leisure flights was 1 319 400.

Cargo and mail carried by Finnair in the year 2008 totalled 102 144 tonnes.