Finnair to add additional seats to its Airbus narrow body fleet

Finnair has announced this plan to add extra seats to its Airbus narrow body fleet:

Due to a growing need for feeder traffic capacity, Finnair has decided to improve the space efficiency of its current Airbus narrow-body fleet, operating mainly on its European routes. According to the plan, seats will be added to the aircraft primarily without changing the leg space available to the passenger, so as to preserve travel comfort. Space efficiency will be improved by modifying storage and technical space at the front and rear of the aircraft.

The value of the investment is approximately EUR 40 million, and it includes 22 narrow-body Airbus aircraft in Finnair’s fleet. The cabin layout change excludes five A321ER aircraft, which are already configured according to the plan, having 209 seats. The cabin reconfiguration is estimated to take two weeks per aircraft during 2017. The reconfiguration adds 6 to 13 seats depending on the aircraft type, increasing the passenger capacity of Finnair’s Airbus narrow-body fleet as measured by available seat kilometers by close to 4 percent.

Finnair has previously stated it needs more European feeder traffic capacity with a view to the growth of its long-haul capacity. The additional capacity will be acquired mainly by increasing the average size of its narrow-body aircraft over the next few years.