Overall cargo tonnage at Finnair fell by 2.9 per cent in June to 13,911 tonnes and in the first half of the year it is down by two per cent to 70,848 tonnes.
However, scheduled cargo traffic tonnes were up 2.7 per cent in June to 12,961 tonnes and 5.8 per cent in the first half of 2018 to 66,542 tonnes.
On Asian routes, the carrier’s main focus market, tonnage increased by 8.5 per cent in June to 10,124 tonnes, and is up 15.7 per cent this year at 52,602 tonnes.
Europe saw a 25.2 per cent fall last month to 1,800 tonnes and a 24.4 per cent fall to date in 2018 at 9,374 tonnes, while to North Atlantic, tonnage was up 17.8 per cent to 990 tonnes, but has fallen 2.4 per cent so far this year to 4,281 tonnes.
Tonnage on freighter flights in June was 950 tonnes, a 44.1 per cent fall on June 2017 and was down 54.3 per cent to 4,305 tonnes in the first half of the year.
Finnair said its total cargo capacity included three weekly freighter flights between Helsinki and Brussels, operated by DHL, but cargo flight volumes decreased from the comparison period, when Finnair rented cargo space from Japan Airlines.
The Helsinki-based airline has increased its long-haul capacity this year by utilising more Airbus A350 aircraft and in June, available scheduled cargo tonne kilometres increased by 23.9 per cent year-on-year.
However, revenue scheduled cargo tonne kilometres fell short of the of the capacity growth by increasing 8.3 per cent, mostly driven by the cargo market development between the Nordic countries and Japan.
Belly capacity growth was directed at added frequencies to several destinations, especially to Tallinn, Bergen, Berlin, Gdansk, St Petersburg and Moscow. Flights to a new destination Stuttgart began at the end of April.
In June, the scheduled traffic cargo load factor was 60 per cent, down 8.6 percentage points and in the first six months of the year it was 57.6 per cent, a 4.3 percentage point drop on the same period in 2017.
