Finnair posts 9.2% revenue increase in 2019

The revenues of national flag carrier Finnair increased both in the fourth quarter and in the whole year of 2019, reported news agency Xinhua quoting the annual financial report of the airlines released on Friday.

In the last quarter of 2019, Finnair's revenues increased by 13.4 percent to 774.9 million euros from 683.4 million euros in the same period of the previous year.

For the whole year of 2019, the airline's revenues grew by nearly 9.2 percent to 3,097.7 million euros, compared to 2,836.1 million euros in 2018.

The comparable operating profit for the full year totaled 162.8 million euros, according to Finnair.

In 2019, the airline carried 14.7 million passengers, 10.3 percent more than in the previous year. Passenger numbers traveling to east Asia increased by nearly 11 percent to 3.5 million.

Following the announcement, Finnair's share price surged by more than five percent on the Helsinki stock market on Friday.

"The year 2019 was a volatile one for us but it ended with a strong quarter as the market situation improved," said Topi Manner, chief executive officer (CEO) of Finnair, in the report.

Manner added that the airline plans to invest 3.5 billion euros to 4 billion euros between 2020 and 2025 to substantially reduce emissions and enable profitable growth.

The company expects its capacity to increase by about four percent in 2020. The airline also said that the novel coronavirus would have a limited financial effect in the first quarter of 2020.