JAL Brings Forward Helsinki Debut

Japan Airlines (JAL) has confirmed it will inaugurate flights between Tokyo Narita and Helsinki from February 2013, one month earlier than first announced as it tweaks its network to account for new Boeing 787 Dreamliner deliveries. The carrier will launch a four times weekly service from February 25, 2013 and plans to boost frequencies to a daily basis before the middle of the year.

The Finnish capital will be the first European destination to welcome scheduled Dreamliner services from JAL and the Japanese flag carrier will look to feed additional traffic through its oneworld partners, this time primarily through Finnair. The Finnish national carrier already serves the route on a daily basis using an Airbus A330-300 and on which JAL currently places its own flight code. In 2011, an estimated 44,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two destinations, but like Finnair, JAL can expect to generate considerable traffic from the Nordic carrier’s regional network that encompasses over 40 destinations across Europe.

Finnair made its debut on the Tokyo Narita – Helsinki route in April 1983, initially flying a weekly rotation with a Douglas DC-10. A second weekly frequency was introduced on a seasonal basis from 1985 and was incorporated on a year-round basis from 1987. In October 1992, McDonnell Douglas MD-11s replaced the older generation DC-10s on the route, while the subsequent use of Airbus A340s from December 2006 coincided with a significant frequency growth to four flights per week. In June 2009, the arrival of A330-300s on the route alongside the larger A340s enabled Finnair to increase to an up to daily service and this grew to up to ten flights per week from this year.

The table below highlights how O&D demand and capacity has changed over the past six years. The figures would seem to suggest that the Finnair and JAL hubs are accounting for a lot of additional transit traffic over recent years as capacity growth is far outstripping the O&D demand on the route. In fact between 2006 and 2011 capacity has more than trebled, but O&D demand has grown by just under a third.