Runway: the Finnair blog

Finnair reliability is at top level

There hasn’t been much good news recently in the world of aviation. So at Finnair we are proud that, in these difficult times, we have succeeded shaping our processes related to reliability to peak condition.

Aircraft are assets that are only productive as long as they are flying. If passengers get annoyed about delays or mislaid baggage, it means an even bigger headache for the airlines. Late departures lead to delays for the next departure, so that in the worst case the entire route network suffers because baggage and customers miss connections and a snowballing of delays begins. Arrival punctuality is important for passengers and their often busy schedules. For an airline a delay means additional costs. Each delay minute is calculated to represent an average of 75 euros. No wonder every airline strives for punctuality.

For the last three months, despite the winter period with adverse weather conditions, the Finnair reliability figures have been excellent. Nine out of ten flights have arrived at their destinations according to timetable. Finnair is now a leader in this field, where the European average is eight out of ten.

For an airline, reliability more than anything means punctuality and regularity of flights, keeping the scheduled flight connections as well as the punctual delivery of baggage.

Flight punctuality is usually measured as proportion of flights arriving within 15 minutes of their scheduled time.

Regularity refers to the actual realization of planned flights. Finnair belongs to the group of airlines with the fewest cancellations in Europe. That means we are honouring the promise that we make to customers. Only in the most exceptional circumstances will a flight not take off. Cancellation of a flight can lead to disastrous situation for passenger, the price tag for an airline can be hundreds of thousands of euros.

Finnair has concentrated even more on connecting traffic at Helsinki between Europe and Asia. In this respect we have managed better at keeping our pledge too: only one passenger in a hundred has missed their connection. Compared with other European hubs, we are both fast and reliable for connecting passengers. Shortest connection time in Helsinki is 35 minutes, but in delay situations we can go even below 15 minutes. Not bad.

Baggage has been a major challenge due to extensive renovations taking place at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. We have made excellent progress in this respect, and Finnair is now at the industry average with 14 bags in every thousand undelivered. We are counting on further improvements by the end of the year. The airport’s new automated baggage factory will go live in autumn, which is a major step ahead in boosting efficiency and capacity of our hub.

The European airline association, the AEA, comprehensively monitors the industry’s performance, the results of their surveys give interesting figures, which are an excellent way to measure and compare the performance of different airlines.

Finnair reliability measures in a nutshell for the first quarter are:

• Punctuality: 9 out of 10 flights arrive at their destinations on time; the figure for the first three months last year was 8/10.
• Regularity: only a few individual flights had to be cancelled from the planned flight schedule. This is industry top level regularity.
• Gateway connections: one in a hundred passengers missed their connecting flights; in 2008 the corresponding first-quarter figure was 3/100.
• Undelivered baggage: 14 items of baggage out of every 1,000 did not travel with their owners; twice as many bags were undelivered in the same period last year.

The results are excellent in comparison with any period in Finnair recent history. The effects of recession have reduced the number of flights, but that alone does not explain these positive developments. There have been significant advances in all production-related areas. In the end, it’s Finnair staff working hard behind the scenes who have made the changes. Reliability is such an important issue for Finnair that performance levels are continuously monitored and incentive rewards for all Finnair staff are based on them.

The recession is an unhappy time for airlines, but there is something good in it too. Cycles with lower capacity utilisation are an opportunity for airline production units to question and challenge their operational systems and methods. We have not been sitting idle. When our fleet returns to peak productivity, we’ll be ready.

Ville Iho