Winglets747

Apologies if already posted. Some highlights from AY's CMD 2014 presentation: http://www.finnairgroup.com/linked/e...tions_2014.pdf

A350

• Cirrus as J seat?

No configuration given, but under "A350 XWB" slide on pg XX is a pic of a Cirrus seat. Could be random, or could be AY's A350 J seat.

Further, on pg 52, is a covered up seat map of AY's A350. Look at the first row of "flex compartment" - looks like a Cirrus set in the middle.

• Flex Compartment

Seems AY will have at least 3(?) rows of J seating that can be converted to Y. Will be interesting to see how they do this.

Considering Russian/CIS destinations (pg 49)

AY has 21% of Siberian JV (Japanese) JV but only 18% of revenue (pg 43)

Transfer share: how many pax on avg transfer per short-haul flight based on time of day? (pg 32)

Expanded HEL hub, more European flights? Two additional European banks to relieve congestion could see 4x European departure banks (pg 33)...but more European flying can be done by partners (pg 54)

SPBanker

Thanks, interesting. Hadn't seen this.

intuition

The flex cabin is a concept Airbus provides - AFAIK cabin is supposed to be "easily" reconfigured between J and Y. Airbus suggests this would be handy to meet different seasonal demands, so I don't think it will fully meet the flexibility needed by AY (nothing is as quick and flexible as the "minicabin with Y service")

In theory it seems very smart - AY could reconfigure a few A350s for tourist season to carry more Y pax. In practice, I'm worried about irrops. What happens when they need to swap one of those 320+ Y seat aircraft into a J heavy route? How do you handle a situation where you need to bump maybe 20 J pax?

intuition

Also very interesting is that they show the fleet plan in number of operational wide bodies each year (page 83).

It does not show the exact planned phase-in of A350s (or phase-out of A340), but the raw net numbers tells us something. For 2015 they plan to operate 15 widebodies, ie the same number of planes as today. in 2016, they will operate 16, ie 1 more.
Since they will do 2 sale&leaseback in 2015, 2 A350s needs to be delivered in 2015. The plan seems to suggest that these aircrafts will not operate until 2016 and that one A340 will leave 2016.

The plan continues with adding only 1 operational widebody each year until 2020. If a total of 3 A340s are leaving during the same time frame, that means "only" 8 A350s will become operational until 2020.

I cannot find the production slots for the 11 A350s on order, but this seems to suggest that AY is getting MSN 18,19,20 and then 22,23 and then 28. After that, it seems no slots are known to be AY. Unnamed slots are MSN 40, 47,48, 50 and further down the line.

No idea is this logic hold, but that seems to suggest that only 6 A350s are coming "soon".

Karjaluokka

Very interesting!

Finnair will decide about the renewal of its OLD European metal within "18-24 months from now", This means that we can expect to see new planes on European routes at the end of this decade?

In the meanwhile we will witness increasing amount of maintence problems as seen during past weeks. Hopefully I'm wrong.

OH-LGG

Why is that?

intuition

Don't think so. That fleet is said to be "approaching mid-life" indicating that AY considers end-of-life to start happen in 10-14 years from now.
Still interesting to know, and AFAIK there are no options - it will be buying more from A320 family, albeit newer generation A320s.

Unless they are saying "as this way point is approaching, we must first decide whether or not we want to operate an European network at all". The joint-venture low-cost feeder airline is perhaps coming? To grow in Asian traffic they need more feeders, anyway.

intuition

Since we don't even know the background of the two engine "mishaps" last week, it is to early to call it anything including maintenance problem.

But if Karjaluokka means "will even smaller technical issues on one plane keep on causing large effects in the daily operations, the answer is:
Yes, this will continue for the foreseeable future. The route network will grow as fast as Airbus can deliver new planes and Finnair will keep on scheduling the fleet to its maximum.

In fact, AY is proud of their delay statistics, even though there is no other airline in the world that has more delays on one single route than AY has on HKG. Don't expect anything to change just because of a couple of enginge failures.

odo

Indeed looks like the Cirrus seat but like you said, can be just placeholder or the new J seat.

Winglets747

That's Cirrus and I doubt they would make a placeholder seat map.

How did you remove the blue boxes? @:-)

intuition

According to Airbus 7 airlines have completed the cabin design phase and with AY being airline no3 to receive planes chances are that this is a real plan. OTOH, Airbus has a cabin design tool, where the airline can try out every possible config (and 3-d render it). I guess that tool will print seat maps too, so it is no extra work getting a seat map, and there probably are a few different seat maps around in AY HQ.

NoWindowSeat

AY has often lot of upgrades, as that is the only part of AY Plus that works...all upgrades cancelled first and then continue from cheapest statusless rev. pax. and work up the ranks. AY plat/OW emerald on rev. J is 99,9% sure to keep his/her paid J seat.

intuition

A few quotes I'm surprised no FT'er said anything about:

"Improved revenue position with superior product" (A350)

"We are developing world-class revenue expertise to increase demand and optimize revenue"

Getting more revenue is supposed to happen due to "new revenue science expertise" which will use "world class revenues optimization" and "leverage CRM and FF program".

And we all know the JVs are there to limit competition and drive price.


The common belief around here is that AY is low price legacy airline, ie tickets are relatively cheap and the service is too. But AY seems to believe they will get more revenue per seat from equipment (A350, new J seats) and "smart tech product development" (ie what?).
It seems they are also implementing a new revenue-management, both system-wise and staff-wise. Currently there are no positions open for analytics or database developers, but I know I have seen them before (and sadly didn't apply). So they might have a team on site already.

Since I optimize to spend as little money as possible with AY to make as many J trips as possible, these plans worries me.

intuition

Also, I have a few comments on the route development:

I'm a bit excited they mention pacific rim cities. I like TPE to be added (Just a personal thing, no idea if it is commercial viable).
The fact that KUL isn't added already is strange. Maybe the freight and people business to SIN is better, otherwise I think it would be better to switch SIN for KUL, now that KUL become a OW hub (and SIN is not good for many connections anymore, after the QF/BA-breakup). But at least when new caacity arrives, I think KUL is a no-brainer?


Not interested in the Russian cities, but I guess some of them can be profitable. The wording on the presentation seems to suggest that they are considdering adding them just because the character (short to medium haul) would fit nicely into current fleet plan. I don't know how healthy a business plan is when the "why?" is answered by "because we can"...


But what are your thoughts?

SPBanker

There's a further aspect to "YES WE CAN", as not too many Western airlines have licenses to fly to places where AY can...