Finnair til Dehli

[CK]

Finnair is launching scheduled non-stop flights between the Indian
capital of Delhi and the Finnish capital of Helsinki in November 2006.
India has a population of one billion and air travel on both business
and for leisure is increasing rapidly. The country’s gross national
product is booming at a rate of 5-7 percent per year.

“India is a rapidly growing business and leisure destination, which
sees a steady flow of passengers year-round. The Delhi route is
Finnair’s tenth Asian destination already and a natural continuation
of our winning Asian strategy. Finland’s geographical position on the
air route between Europe and Asia means we offer the fastest
connections from Western Europe, via Helsinki to Asia,” explains VP
Network Strategies and Development Petteri Kostermaa from Finnair.

Thanks to Helsinki’s optimal geographical position, flight time from
Helsinki to Delhi is only 6 hours and 35 minutes, over 30 minutes
faster than on any other route from Western Europe to India.

There are relatively few frequencies from the whole of Europe to Delhi
and there are no direct connections to the city from Northern Europe.
The new Finnair route from Helsinki to Delhi has excellent connections
from all over Northern Europe, Scandinavia and Baltic Sea area, even
from London and Paris. In the Delhi-Helsinki direction there are quick
Finnair connections to around 30 cities in Europe. Delhi on the other
hand is the main airline hub in India and offers excellent connections
to the rest of the country.

The inaugural flight to Delhi will be on Wednesday 1 November 2006.
The route will be operated initially three times a week with Finnair’s
Boeing MD-11 fleet. The other departure days from Helsinki are Monday
and Friday. From India, the route will be operated on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays. The planned departure time from Helsinki is
14.30 with the flight arriving in Delhi just after midnight at 00.35.
The departure time from Delhi towards Helsinki is at 02.35 and the
arrival time in Helsinki is early in the morning at 06.20.

Finnair has been systematically increasing its number of destinations
in Asia since 1999. Already a quarter of the airline’s revenues result
for scheduled traffic comes from Asian routes. In September this year
Finnair launched a new route with three weekly flights to Guangzhou in
China. Finnair operates to China more than twice a day and to Bangkok
and Japan daily. Earlier this year the airline announced it will open
a new destination in Japan, Nagoya, in June 2006

Finnair Plc
Communications
29.11.2005