THE NEW MILLENNIUM

The airline industry changed radically around the turn of the millennium. The events of 11 September 2001, the Iraq War, SARS and tighter price competition also compelled Finnair to consider new kinds of strategic solutions.

The new millennium arrived without the feared Y2K computer problems. Finnair's first flight on New Year's Day departed from Helsinki for Utapao, Thailand at 02.30 am, with a stopover in Dubai.

Product testing by private and business customers of the electronic air ticket, the Ticketless Flight, was started on all domestic routes in March. An electronic serial ticket for corporate customers had already been in use for over a year.

Finnair's new logo, designed by advertising agency SEK & GREY, was taken into use on 1 June. The four cornerstones of Finnair's corporate image are safety, reliability, Finnishness and freshness.

In December, Finnair initiated the process of establishing an airline company in Estonia. An operating licence was applied for under the business name Aero, and an application to register a limited company, Aero Airlines AS, was submitted to the Estonian authorities.

In 2000 Finnair carried 7,438,400 passengers.

11 September 2001 turns Finnair's course eastward

At the beginning of February, Finnair started giving exercise instructions on all leisure flights of more than five hours.

Lakselv in Norway became a Finnair scheduled flight destination in June. The route was flown three times a week during the summer via Rovaniemi until mid-August.

In September, partnership flights were started with Ukraine International Airlines to Kiev. The route was flown on Thursdays and Sundays with a Ukraine airline Boeing 737.

After the 11 September terrorist attacks in New York, Finnair initiated cost-cutting measures and adjusted its capacity to the decreasing demand. The terrorist acts had an adverse impact on the financial position of airlines.

The objective of the cost-cutting measures was to achieve savings as soon as possible. Some of the measures were aimed at changing the cost structure. Salaries and the recruitment of new personnel were frozen, short-term contracts were not renewed, all possible new acquisitions were abandoned, investments were shelved and a restructuring of the route network and capacity was initiated.

With the deterioration in demand for New York flights, the capacity released from the route was transferred to Canary Islands flights and to the Helsinki-Bangkok route, due to the better market climate for Asian traffic.
When the winter timetable came into force on 29 October, Finnair and Golden Air began partnership flights on the Helsinki-Skavsta route.

New destinations in Asia and Europe in 2002

Finnair's first flight to Hong Kong took place on 7 February 2002. A regular scheduled service started on 15 February. On 14 February, Finnair began a daily service between Helsinki and Bangkok.

In March, Finnair's new look and new uniforms were presented. The uniforms became the official dress code for 4,000 Finnair staff at the end of the month. The uniforms were designed by Anna-Kaisa Huttunen, a Finnish designer living in Paris.

Aero started flying between Helsinki and Tallinn on 31 March.

Finnair opened a new non-stop route to Stuttgart on 26 August. The service was flown twice a day on weekdays using Golden Air's 50-seat Saab 2000 aircraft.

The third runway at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was opened on 28 November 2002. The Finnair MD-11 flight AY005 to New York, flown by Captain Pekka Henttu, was the first to use the new runway.

SARS and the Iraq War alarm passengers

During the Iraq War in 2003, Finnair flew all of its flights normally, because the flight routes were sufficiently distant from the war zone. Finnair began adjustment measures, however, to secure its financial health. As part of a new wide-ranging cost-cutting programme, Finnair initiated employer-employee discussions based on the Act on Cooperation within Undertakings.

At the beginning of April, Finnair began to apply on its flights updated precautionary measures due to the SARS epidemic, and it temporarily reduced capacity on the Helsinki-Beijing route owing to a fall in demand caused by SARS.

In June, three flights a week were also cut from Finnair's service between Helsinki and Bangkok. At the same time, connecting flights via Bangkok to Hong Kong and Singapore were also suspended.

At the beginning of June, on the other hand, Finnair resumed its flight service to Osaka after a three-year break. At the beginning of July, Finnair's service to Hong Kong returned to its normal three flights a week. At the same time, the company restored its daily service to Bangkok.

A second flight was added to the Beijing route on 21 July and, on Tuesday 2 September, Finnair began flying to Shanghai, becoming the only northern European airline to do so. Finnair was also the first oneworld airline to start flight traffic to Shanghai.

Finnair concluded an agreement with the US company MedAire by which MD-11 and Boeing 757 aircraft used on the company's long-haul and leisure flights could contact a MedAire worldwide hospital emergency centre 24 hours a day, even from the most remote regions of the world. The centres provide expert assistance 24 hours per day.

The Annual General Meeting of Finnair Plc held on 9 April decided to abolish the Supervisory Board. The duties of the Supervisory Board were transferred to the Board of Directors and the election of the Board of Directors to the Annual General Meeting.

The fleet's long-serving DC-9 aircraft were retired at the end of July.

Sun rises in the East

2003 had presented new challenges for the airline industry. Finnair entered 2004 in an expectant mood.

The company increased flight frequencies on its Asian routes in the summer of 2004. The airline added a sixth Boeing MD-11 aircraft to its fleet at the end of spring, helping it to further expand its flights to China. From the beginning of June, the Shanghai service operated five times per week and Hong Kong service three times per week, so together with the daily flights to Beijing, Finnair had a total of 15 weekly flights to China.

Responding to high demand, Finnair increased its number of Bangkok and Miami flights by almost a half during winter 2004-2005. The company flew ten times per week to Bangkok in the peak demand periods around Christmas and New Year. Miami, which had returned as a winter destination in 2003, received a third weekly flight.

In 2004 Finnair carried more than eight million passengers for the first time in its history. The previous record was just over 7.5 million passengers in 2000. The number of passengers in 2003 had been less than seven million. Overall, during its 80 years of operation Finnair had carried over 170 million passengers.

Finnair Leisure Flights opened its own internet website at the address www.leisureflights.fi. On the website it is possible to purchase a seat on a leisure flight.

Customers who had no onward connection were also offered the opportunity to check in on the internet for all of Finnair's scheduled flights departing from Helsinki and Stockholm.

In October, Finnair introduced the world's first mobile phone service that enabled Finnair Plus members to check-in in advance for flights with a text message.

Long-haul traffic fleet modernisation gets underway

The company's Asian conquest continued when direct flights to Guangzhou in China began in the autumn. New destinations in 2005 were also Boston, Istanbul, the Azores and Venice.

For the second time, Finnair was chosen as Europe's best airline by some 600 Swedish travel professionals. Finnair was also ranked second in the inter-continental flight category for the second time in succession.

Finnair's first Embraer 170 aircraft arrived in Finland in September. Its first scheduled flight was to Oslo on 1 October.

In December 2005, Finnair announced a long-haul fleet modernisation programme, the main reason for which was strong growth in Asian traffic.

President & CEO Keijo Suila retired at the end of 2005, and was succeeded on 1 January 2006 by Jukka Hienonen.

Finnair carried a record number of passengers, 8.5 million, in 2005.

Success in Sweden

In spring 2006, Finnair began flights to Edinburgh, Krakow, Kiev and Tuscany. A service to Geneva opened in the summer.

New destinations were added to the Asian network. Nagoya became Finnair's third Japanese destination in the summer. Flights to Finnair's first Indian destination, Delhi, began on 30 October. The Hong Kong route was reopened for the summer, this time direct with no stopover in Bangkok.

Finnair succeeded in a competitive tender for flights for Swedish state officials. Based on the tender, the Swedish state purchased all the Asian routes that Finnair had offered. This success continued in 2007, when Finnair won the competitive tender again.

Finnair first Airbus A340 departed on its first flight, to Kuopio, on the morning of Monday, 19 June. The aircraft made around 30 flights within Finland, mainly to Kuopio, Oulu and Rovaniemi, before it was transferred to its proper route, between Shanghai and Helsinki, at the beginning of July.

Thursday, 2 November 2006 marked the 30th anniversary of the opening of Finnair's first Asian route. The company flew to Bangkok with a DC-8 aircraft via Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, once per week and only in the winter.

On 29 November 2006, Finnair signed an order agreement for four new 100-seat Embraer 190 jet aircraft. Finnair's first Embraer 190, OH-LKE, arrived in Finland from Brazil on Saturday, 16 December.

Direct to all long-haul destinations

In January 2007, Finnair was ranked for the third time in succession as the best airline operating from Germany on short- and medium-haul flights. The selection was made by customers of the German internet travel agencies travelchannel.de, flug.de and traveloverland.de.

A number of new routes were opened during 2007. In March, the fascinating capital of Portugal, Lisbon, returned to the route network, and in April a route to the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, opened. In April, flights also began to Gdansk, which became Finnair's third destination in Poland.

In June 2007, a service began to Finnair's second Indian destination, Mumbai - direct flights from Helsinki, five days per week. Due to increases in Indian and Chinese traffic, it was decided to discontinue connecting flights from Bangkok to Singapore. The change meant that Finnair flies directly to all long-haul destinations without stopovers.

In March 2007, Finnair announced that it intended to bring forward its long-haul fleet modernisation. The company will replace its Boeing MD-11 long-haul fleet with Airbus A340 and A330 wide-bodied aircraft in 2009-10.

In September, Finnair announced that it would take advantage of the opportunity to change the original order from four-engine A340s to two-engine A330s. The company now has confirmed orders for six A330-300E aircraft and four options, of which one has now been confirmed.

The fleet modernisation decision also means that the company will receive at least 11 of the new generation Airbus A350 aircraft at a later stage, beginning in 2014.

In the summer 2007, Finnair received its first new A340E aircraft. The technically high-level A340s will fly on Finnair's long Asian routes. The new aircraft's first commercial flight departed for Tokyo on 2 June.

Finnair's Asian network will be strengthened further when the company opens a direct service to the South Korean capital Seoul in summer 2008.

Aero is consigned to history and propeller aircraft era ends

Finnair's Estonian subsidiary, Aero, flew its last flight on 6 January 2008. At the same time, Finnair's propeller aircraft era came to an end when the ATR-72-201 aircraft that had flown in the Aero livery were transferred to new owners.

In 2005 and 2006 Aero carried a total of 1.5 million passengers. In both years, the airline flew more than 20,000 flights, i.e. around 60 flights per day. Aero's annual turnover was around 50 million euros, and in most recent years it made a slight profit. At its peak, Aero had around 200 employees.

Finnair had been the first airline in the world to acquire ATR-72 aircraft. The first ATR-72 was delivered to the company in October 1989.

More detailed reports on the events of the 1990s and 2000s can be found in the Archive.