National airline Finnair anticipates that this year will be its third consecutive year of significant losses.

The firm on Tuesday reported comparable operating losses of around 84 million euros for April-June, down from 151 million a year earlier.

That was worse than predicted by a panel of analysts, reports the business daily Kauppalehti. It cites a survey by the US financial data firm Factset, in which analysts forecast a loss of 56 million euros on a turnover of 542 million euros. The actual turnover was slightly higher than that at just over 550 million euros.

Finnair says the result for the whole year is still projected to be clearly loss-making.

From one crisis to another

CEO Topi Manner noted that Finnair moved from one crisis to another in the second quarter.

"The impacts of the severe, two years-and-counting pandemic started to ease as demand recovered, but at the same time, we felt the full weight of the impacts of the war in Ukraine," he said in a statement.

Weakened by the pandemic, the flag carrier was hit by the historically high price of fuel, which almost doubled from the end of 2021.

The second major blow was the closure of Russian airspace, which was key to its profitable Asian routes and forced it to find longer, slower routes to reach those destinations. Finnair expects the airspace shutdown to last a long time. Asian traffic has been the focus of the airline's strategy in recent years.

The overflight ban was also reflected in lower-than-expected capacity, which was around 64 percent of 2019's capacity. Previously, Finnair had estimated the capacity to be around 70 percent in the second and third quarters. It still hopes to hit that target by autumn.

"Significant structural overhaul" on the horizon

As a result, the company is preparing a new strategy to improve its weak profitability and to strengthen its financial position.

According to Manner, Finnair needs a significant structural overhaul.

"We are working on a thorough strategy renewal and aim to communicate more about our direction and the changes it brings in the autumn," he said.

According to Finnair's invoices, the record high price of fuel has caused the company additional costs of around 126 million euros in April-June.

On a positive note, the airline said that demand has almost normalised in Europe and the US. Finnair estimates that during late summer and early autumn, it will fly at an average capacity of about 70 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

At the same time, the rapid recovery of air travel has caused staff shortages and massive delays at airports across Europe, which have affected the punctuality of Finnair's flights.