Finnair, which is the national airline of Finland, had its first positive quarterly comparable operating profit since the last quarter of 2019 on Friday. However, the airline’s net result stayed in the red.
Last month, the airline announced a new plan to get back to making money after the COVID-19 pandemic, the closure of Russian airspace, and high fuel prices all hurt them.
Finnair started looking for new routes that would be good for business after the war in Ukraine forced Russia to close its airspace and cut off its connections to Asia via a short northern route.
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The airline’s operating profit for the third quarter was 35.2 million euros ($35.1 million), compared to a loss of 109.1 million euros for the same time last year.
Finnair’s CEO, Topi Manner, said in a statement, “However, the result for the period was still negative, at 37.2 million euros, due to high financial expenses caused by heavy debt and exchange losses caused by the strong dollar.”
The company said that sales went up 261% from July to September of last year to 719.2 million euros.
Finnair has said that it wants to build a more geographically balanced network by working more with partner airlines and adding more flights to India, the Middle East, and North America from its home hub in Helsinki.
($1 = 1.0021 euros)
