China potential and the "Siberian Joint Business Agreement" Japan joint venture
At its Capital Markets Day in My-2014, Finnair presented forecasts that Europe-Asia travel will more than double from 60 million passengers in 2010 to 130 million in 2020. A large part of this potential sits in China, while Finnair also now has a strong partnership operation into Japan.
China's top three hubs - Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai Pudong alone already have a combined passenger throughput of more than 300 million annually. Finnair also points to the potential of China's second tier cities. Urban clusters around Shanghai, Jingjinji, Shandong and Guangzhou each have economies with a GDP similar in size to those of medium sized European countries such as Switzerland, Belgium and Austria.
Moreover, there are 35 Chinese cities with a population of more than two million that currently have no non-stop flights to Europe.