00:00earned in asia lower fuel costs and an increase in passenger numbers that's how finair reported
00:05its strongest fourth quarter on record with operating profit of 73.5 million dollars the
00:11finnish air carrier forecast higher earnings for 2026 well chuk kusisto is finnair's ceo
00:19no i think that the very solid q4 we today reported is a factor of multiple successes
00:27of course we benefited from to some extent the favorable oil price environment but above all
00:34the action taken by our 5800 colleagues when it comes to punctual operation cost management and
00:41also capturing the available demand and very successful ticket sales during the fourth quarter
00:47and resulted in actually extremely good q4 results you talk about your team there so i do have to
00:55talk about some of the headwinds because you face significant disruption following that long running
01:00labor dispute flight cancellations in late january that affected thousands of passengers where are
01:06you in talks with unions yes the first half of 2025 was pretty much over settled by a complex and
01:16prolonged cla processes and but luckily we could finalize and agree all the deals with all the
01:22employee unions and employee groups early july and ever since we have operated in a kind of a stable
01:29environment that enabled us to win back customers trust we've seen very very quick turnaround in nps and
01:37also what i was very happy to witness when we measured our employee engagement late november early december
01:45we also see a rather significant improvement in our internal engagement and cultural environment
01:52but your business model i would say was uniquely exposed to the closure of russian airspace you're affected
02:00also by by the covid pandemic you know given your historic reliance on that short northern route to asia
02:07how are you reshaping your growth strategy in asia and specifically china given today's geopolitical and
02:15airspace realities yeah of course the closure of russian airspace influenced significantly our prior
02:24business model and network design but in 2022 and 2023 the finner team successfully rebalanced or pivoted
02:33the network and uh now we have demonstrated over the last three fiscal years that we can operate a
02:39successful and profitable airline even though the let's say the macro landscape has changed asia is
02:46still very important for us especially when it comes to our foothold in japan unfortunately our presence
02:53in china is limited because of the closure of russian airspace so currently we have only one
03:00destination in mainland china being shanghai but to hong kong we do have a daily daily operation but
03:05having said all this we of course continue to monitor the situation very closely because uh the china
03:12and chinese market is not only important for finner in the longer run but that is hugely important export
03:18market uh in the wider group of finnish in the industrial companies i mean finner recently joined the
03:25finnish prime minister's delegation to china i mean what would you say that signals about the strategic
03:31importance of the chinese market for for the airline right now and more broadly for the sector
03:38no i i think that we were very privileged that we were invited to our prime minister's delegation
03:44and we wanted to of course participate because uh as mentioned we do see that uh in the longer term
03:51we
03:51want to be uh in the position of further developing our market presence if russian airspace one day will
03:58reopen and uh giving you a bit of a context we've been present in china already for for more than
04:0440 years
04:05so it has been a long-term investment for finner and uh we would like to see it to develop
04:10also in the
04:11future and uh as mentioned finnish economy is also somewhat benefiting from our exports from finland to
04:19uh china so therefore i think that finner also also need to be pretty involved
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