Finnair on cloud nine over India business prospect

New Delhi: Finnair, the official carrier of Finland, took 19 years to start 25 weekly flights out of China but less than nine months to operate 12 flights a week from India. The logic is simple. With all the big IT players of India in Finland and growing Finnish business presence in India, corporate travel is on a high.
Alongside, for the first time, this eastern Scandinavian nation is keen to project its brand ambassador – Santa Claus – in India. Besides, domestic tour operators too are now drawing up special tour packages for ‘winter tourism’ to Finland.
“In 2006, Finland had more than 45,000 over nights (tourists who stay for one or more nights) from India, up 40% from the previous year,” says Taina Tornstrom, director – Indian sub-continent, Finnair. “It takes 6.5 hours to fly to Helsinki from Delhi, and the Helsinki airport has also been voted as the best European airport, which works in our favour,” says Ms Tornstrom.
According to her, in roughly two years, the fleet would be doubled and the airline would make forays into Bangalore and Chennai.
23/09/07 Moinak Mitra & Vishakha Talreja/Economic Times

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Categories: Foreign Sep 2007