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SUSTAINABLE GROWTH IS PROFITABLE
A glittering history is no guarantee of future success. Today and in the future, Finnair must be able to meet the growing, diverse needs of Finnish and international customers. This will be possible only if operations are competitive and profitable in the long term.
For over 80 years, Finnair's route network has expanded as Finnish society and business life have open up to the world. In that time, more than 200 million passengers have flown on blue and white wings.
A comprehensive route network, an efficient fleet and expert personnel are also the cornerstones of future activity. Development must take place, however, in harmony with the surrounding society and environment. That's why Finnair's business objective is sustainable, profitable growth.
Air transport - a part of modern society
Efficient transport links and services are a prerequisite of modern Western society. Finnair, with its highly efficient and extensive route network, is an important part of the structure and competitiveness of Finnish society. Direct links to nearly 50 international and 16 domestic destinations, plus 60 leisure flight destinations constitute an exceptionally diverse route network.
Air transport in Finland is the only form of public transport that does not need taxpayers' support. Finnair, indeed, finances a significant part of Finland's air transport infrastructure and generates for society tax revenues as well as financial profit.
Finnair directly employs more than 9,000 people, and indirectly thousands more, in different parts of Finland and the world. Rapidly growing Asian traffic has provided work for thousands of Finnair employees.
Competition the engine of sustainable development
Only a financially competitive company has what it takes to fulfil its social obligations. Air transport is an extremely competitive sector in which operating conditions change very quickly. Surprising, unforeseen events can, in a instant, present the entire industry with new challenges.
Over the years, Finnair has had to make painful decisions to preserve the company's viability and to secure sustainable competitiveness and high service quality for the future, too.
Pursuing responsible profitability and a sustainable growth strategy has created the financial health that enables future investments to be made. Taking the demands of sustainable development more widely into account in air transport and tourism is a guiding principle in Finnair's decision-making. A large-scale, environmentally positive fleet renewal programme began in 1999 and will continue into the next decade.
No short cut to responsibility
The charitable partnership of Finnair and UNICEF over the last ten years is indicative of Finnair's desire to make a tangible impact in areas where the prerequisites for life are not automatically within reach.
Environmentally sustainable well-being is also important to Finnair. Finnair supports the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation's waterways protection project, which aims to prevent the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea by reducing the loading of Finland's coastal waters, internal waterways and rivers. During the waterways protection project, a teaching pack will be produced for schools. Finnair and the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation want to ensure that millions of people can enjoy in future, too, the unspoilt, beautiful nature of the Baltic region.
Finnair's reputation as a high quality and responsible Finnish operator is the result of many years of goal-directed work. Operating successfully is a challenge even during periods of steady growth, to say nothing of the turbulence encountered during the external shocks of recent years.
Corporate social responsibility is fundamental attitude and a way of working. Finnair bears its responsibility for tomorrow, and the goals of sustainable growth also extend our own activities more widely, into the surrounding society. |
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