Finnair vs the pandemic
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Finnair vs the pandemic
Table of contents
- What is Finnair
- Finnair and the environment
- How Finnair coped with corona
- How coronavirus affected on stakeholders & Business indicators
- Emissions
- Sources
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What is Finnair
Finnair is one of Finland’s biggest companies and well known worldwide. It has struggled, like all airlines and companies, with its carbon footprint and other environmental problems. It also doesn’t come as a surprise that COVID-19 has had its toll on Finnair’s business. In 2019 its revenue was 3 097,7 million euros. The following year it decreased to 102,0 million euros and in 2021 it is 113,6 million. Looking at these numbers we can see that the epidemy is starting to blow over which is good for businesses. At the end of 2019 it had almost 6 800 employees. After the coronavirus hit it had to lay off almost everyone.
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Finnair and the environment
Being an environmentalist and flying doesn’t go hand in hand but Finnair is trying to change that. They are planning to be carbon neutral by the end of year 2045. By 2025 they have cut their carbon dioxide emissions by half from what they were in 2019. They are planning to achieve that goal by upgrading their old planes to new more environmentally friendly planes, reducing the weight of the planes which means less fuel consumption, using more biofuel, planning their flights to be more fuel efficient and funding the research for synthetic fuels and electric planes. In order to achieve these goals they have already bought two new planes that are more fuel efficient, have flown three flights with biofuel and every car they use in airports uses biodiesel. In 2019 Finnair launched a new service that allows passengers to donate 10, 20 or 65 euros to buy biofuel for planes. Of course they wouldn’t use biofuel on that particular flight but they would in the future. The whole green campaign is good for Finnair’s image and I’m sure it has attracted more environmentally cautious customers to use their services but it is really expensive to buy new planes and use biofuel. It shows a good example for other companies.
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How Finnair coped with corona
During covid Finnair started offering corona cover for its passengers. It had no additional costs and it provided cover in case the passenger flying Finnair tests positive for covid-19 at the destination. It also covered the costs of the corona test, quarantine and new flights back home. Apart from this corona cover, Finnair has taken many steps to provide safer traveling experience. Wearing a mask during flights is mandatory and it has changed its food serving to a safer alternative. They have also partnered with a Finnish healthcare provider Terveystalo to get discounts on corona tests.
COVID-19 is a hard time for all who rely their livelihood on travelers and tourists. Now that we are starting to recover from the epidemy, Finnair could partner with countries and cities that have suffered from the lack of tourists. The country could pay a part of Finnairs flight fees to said country, so the customers could have cheaper flights to the destination. This draws more tourists to the country and means more customers for Finnair. They could advertise this widely on social media platforms to reach a younger audience and on television to catch the eyes of parents who are looking to take their children on a trip after a stressful year.
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How coronavirus affected on stakeholders
During the last 4 years Finnair’s price per stock has slumped along with many other airlines and the main reason as everyone knows is coronavirus and how
it affects international travelling and tourism. Finnair was in a quite stable and good place financially before coronavirus striked the business downwards. As it is easy to see that the price per stock has gone down from nearly 13 euros down to 0.4672€ (26.4.2022, Yahoo Finance). Finnair was years and years favourable option for investors who were into dividend of 3-4% annually and a rise of value 10-20% but the loss of the company’s market cap has been insane, it is around 90% decline from its glory days.
Figure 1 Finnair stock (26.4.2022), Yahoo! Finance
At the beginning of February 2021, the company estimated that the direct economic impact of the coronavirus would have been relatively limited, even if the cancellations of flights to mainland China had continued this time until the end of the quarter. Demand for air traffic has fallen and the company will have to adjust its operations. Finnair is for example trying to adjust for this situation with changing its passenger plane’s to cargo planes and the demand would rise.
Today Finnair is everything but profitable but does it really have the fear of facing bankruptcy? Probably not. So shareholders shouldn’t be worried about bankruptcy because of mother land Finland for who Finnair and it’s planes might be the only way to get supplies for example during a war or a massive catastrophe in the Baltic sea which would mean that all the cargo ships would be banned for coming and then Finnair’s fleet will and it has to step up for all the Finnish people. So from that point of view investors and especially normal shareholders will never lose all of their investments.
As the 2021 crisis in the Suez canal showed for the whole world that we cannot rely on one or two ways of trafficking cargo shipments. It was crucial for the whole world but a catastrophe in the Baltic Sea would cut Finland totally from the outside world. Keeping Finnair on its feet during these extreme and severe times is very important and Finnair has launched bonds with annual interest of 8-10% and regarding all of the facts in this paragraph the bonds have been the best and the most secure investment of all times. Hopefully many of Finnair’s shareholders have taken the advantage on the bonds, it’s been easy money.
Increase of revenue = Liikevaihdon kasvu
Profit = Liiketulos
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Emissions
“ WHAT HAVE WE DONE FOR RESPONSIBILITY OVER THE PAST YEAR?
During the pandemic, emissions from flying were drastically reduced, but the social and economic costs were high as jobs were lost in both the aviation and tourism industries. As flying gradually begins to recover, we need to ensure that emissions do not recover at the same pace. Finnair has the most ambitious emissions reduction targets in the industry: by the end of 2025, we intend to halve the level of net emissions from 2019, and achieve carbon neutrality latest by the end of 2045.
We also worked on this during 2020. “
-Finnair
According to Finnair website’s new aircraft technology significantly improves fuel efficiency. Finnair plans to invest 3.4-4 billion € in the renewal and growth of its fleet in 2020-2025. Renewal of its fleet will decrease its emissions for 10-20% in Europe and in Asia as well. One of the most important single factors for this will be reducing the weight of every single new plane that flies, it might be the simplest solution for the climate crisis.
Finnair is increasing the use of sustainable fuels. Finnair estimates that it will spend approximately 10 to 15 million euros annually on sustainable fuels by the end of 2025. Finnair’s biofuel partner is the Finnish well-known company Neste, which is the world’s largest producer of biofuel made from waste for aircraft use. Neste might be a crucial partner in the future, and it might make the difference why more and more passengers will fly with Finnair. In practice, this means for Finnair fuel-efficient flight planning, reducing the weight of aircraft and operating each flight as fuel-efficiently as possible. Finnair is also focusing on its pilots, they have an important role to play here, their actions have a concrete and significant impact on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Flight planning and actions taken at the airport also affect fuel efficiency and Finnair is really investing on it as well to be the best airline in every aspect starting from planes all the way back to everything that happens at the airports.
Finnair is also funding projects for new alternative solutions, such as synthetic fuels and electric flying and as everyone knows 2020 was a revolutionary year for electric cars for example Tesla and NIO took a whole advantage of the year. In the future it really won’t be surrealistic to have planes which fly with electricity.
Finnair’s most significant action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in 2019 was the fact that they purchased new A350 Airbus planes, and these planes are 20-30% more fuel efficient than the older versions.
Goals in calculating emissions, Finnair have developed an advanced emissions calculator based on actual freight, passenger, and fuel consumption data.
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Sources
Finnair, HIILIDIOKSIDIPÄÄSTÖT
https://company.finnair.com/fi/vastuullisuus/hiilidioksidip%C3%A4%C3%A4st%C3%B6t
Maaseudun tulevaisuus, Finnairilta uusi palvelu: Asiakkaat voivat hyvittää lentonsa päästöt tukemalla liesien käyttöä Afrikassa tai ostamalla biopolttoainetta, 15.1.2019
https://www.maaseuduntulevaisuus.fi/ymparisto/artikkeli-1.362290
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnair
Finnair group interim report
1 JANUARY – 31 MARCH 2021
Finnair group financial statements release 1 january – 31 december 2021
https://investors.finnair.com/en/financial-information/result-center
Finnair Group Financial Statements
Release 1 January–31 December 2019,
7.2.2020
https://investors.finnair.com/~/media/Files/F/Finnair-IR/documents/en/reports-and-presentation/2020/financial-statements-2019-bulletin.pdf
Finnair, Turvallinen matkustaminen koronavirusaikana
https://www.finnair.com/fi-fi/turvallinen-matkustaminen-koronavirusaikana
Yahoo! Finance, Finnair Oyj (FIA1S.HE), 26.4.2022
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FIA1S.HE?p=FIA1S.HE&.tsrc=fin-srch
Finnair, Usein kysytyt kysymykset, Koronavirus
Kauppalehti, Finnairin jättitappiot jatkuivat, näkyvyys yhä heikko – Valopilkkuna odotetusti rahtilennot 27.4.2021
Talouselämä, Hurjat luvut! Finnairin päästöt kasvoivat nopeammin kuin kärkisaastuttaja Ryanairin – selitys on selvä, toteaa Finnair, 3.4.2019
Kauppalehti, Finnairin rahdissa maaliskuu oli ennätyskuukausi, ja Suezin kanavan tukos nostaa kysyntää entisestään – Topi Manner: ”Kun verrataan pandemiaa edeltävään aikaan, hinnat ovat jopa kolminkertaistuneet”, 27.4.2021
https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/finnairin-rahdissa-maaliskuu-oli-ennatyskuukausi-ja-suezin-kanavan-tukos-nostaa-kysyntaa-entisestaan-topi-manner-kun-verrataan-pandemiaa-edeltavaan-aikaan-hinnat-ovat-jopa-kolminkertaistuneet/1794c403-cec8-439f-8965-60bf7f28e2c3
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