Finnair to expand operations in India: CEO

New Delhi, Nov 9: Finland's national airline Finnair today announced plans to expand its operations in India with new destinations and more flights in coming months.

On October 31, it started the new fast route to Delhi with its first flight from Helsinki lasting six-and-a-half hours.

Finnair is part of oneworld alliance that currently comprises of American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, Cathay Pacific Airways, Iberia, LAN and Aer Lingus, plus their dozen affiliates.

Between them, they serve more than 600 destinations in some 135 countries, carrying more than 250 million passengers a year worldwide on more than 8,000 daily departures.

''Finnair's route from Delhi to Helsinki is the shortest connection between Europe and India,'' said its president and chief executive officer Jukka Hienonen.

Helsinki is the first EU capital when flying from India and offers a wide route network to other destinations in Europe. ''We are currently renewing our long haul fleet to better serve the Indian and European customers with modern aircraft,'' said Mr Hienonen.

Initially, the flights will run three times a week using Boeing MD-11 wide-bodied aircraft, but next spring the frequencies will be boosted to five a week. Departures from Helsinki to Delhi are on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and return flights on the following days.

There are relatively few frequencies from the whole of Europe to Delhi and no direct connections from northern Europe. The new route has excellent connections to Delhi from Scandinavia, the Baltic sea area and whole of northern Europe, with short flight times even to London and Paris.

In the Delhi-Helsinki direction, quick Finnair connections serve to around 30 cities in Europe. The Delhi route is Finnair's tenth Asian destination. A third of the airline's revenues result for scheduled traffic comes from Asian routes.

''We want to fly to new destinations in India because we believe in its strong economic growth and expanding travel market,'' said Mr Hienonen.

UNI