FINLAND. A competitive marketplace made for a difficult fourth-quarter for Finnair as it posted fourth-quarter pre-tax losses reported Reuters.
Despite a rise in traffic in the last three months of 2003, the company suffered a pre-tax loss of €8.1 million (US$10.2 million) after financial items in the quarter, compared with a profit of €12.5 million (US$15.7 million) in the same period in 2002.
It made a full-year pre-tax loss after financial items of €21.7 million (US$27.3 million), compared with a €54.4 million (US$68.5 million) profit in 2002.
Traffic grew by +9.5% in the final quarter, with average passenger loads rising 1.7 percentage points to 71.2% of capacity as capacity rose +6.8%. But turnover fell -6.4% to €406 million (US$10.2 million) as weaker fares and increased long haul traffic cut unit passenger revenues by -14.5%.
