Close to one million passengers and solid passenger load factor
August passenger traffic figures improved year-on-year as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts have mostly faded and as the Russian airspace was closed already during the comparison period. The negative impact of the Russian airspace closure especially on Asian passenger traffic figures was, however, still visible in August 2023 compared to the pre-pandemic figures. The distance-based reported traffic figures do not take into account longer routings caused by the airspace closure as they are based on Great-Circle distance.
The overall capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASK), increased in August by 13.6% year-on-year but decreased by 2.0% month-on-month. Finnair's traffic, measured in Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs), increased by 16.6% year-on-year but decreased by 7.8% month-on-month. The Passenger Load Factor (PLF) increased by 2.1% points year-on-year but decreased by 5.0% points month-on-month to 79.8%.
The ASK increase in Asian traffic was 41.5% year-on-year explained e.g. by the additional capacity to Japan and South Korea. The North Atlantic capacity decreased by 40.7% as the operations between Stockholm and the North American destinations were discontinued at the end of October 2022. In European traffic, the ASKs were up by 7.8%. The Middle Eastern capacity surged by 1,588.6% due to the Qatar Airways cooperation commenced in November 2022 and low traffic during the 2022 summer season. The ASKs in domestic traffic increased by 23.3%.
RPKs increased in Asian traffic by 54.8% year-on-year but decreased in North Atlantic traffic by 35.9%. In European traffic, RPKs increased by 4.7%, in Middle Eastern traffic by 1,450.6% and in domestic traffic by 7.9%.