UPDATE 2-India flights drive Finnair traffic up in March

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By Sami Torma

HELSINKI, April 10 (Reuters) - Finnish national carrier Finnair (FIA1S.HE) said on Thursday its total passenger traffic grew in March, boosted by flights to India.

Total revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) rose 15 percent from a year earlier to 2.01 billion in March, after a 17.3 percent increase in February, Finnair said in a statement.

The airline carried 18 percent more passengers on its Asian routes than a year ago, with the increased traffic to Mumbai and Delhi as the engine for growth, it said.

Asian traffic measured in passenger kilometres, grew 23 percent from a year ago.

Overall passenger load factor -- a measure of how well an airline fills its seats -- fell 2.2 percentage points to 76.4 percent, due to an increase in capacity.

Finnair said its unit revenues, based on RPKs, decreased in scheduled traffic by nearly 3 percent. This was due to the Easter season, when there is a decrease in higher yield business travel, falling on March this year instead of April.

Nordic rival SAS (SAS.ST) posted on Monday slightly higher traffic figures for March but warned yields would fall 10-15 percent by the Easter holidays.

Blue1, SAS's Finnish unit, said on Thursday it carried 19 percent less passengers in March year-on-year, with load factor slightly lower than a year ago, due to an increased focus on profit, the Easter holiday period and ending of two European routes.

Finnair's partner, Finncomm Airlines, said it carried 210,490 passengers in the first quarter, up by 70 percent year-on-year, although it suffered from a shortage of pilots.

Finncomm has begun operating some Finnair routes in the quarter after Finnair discontinued operations on its Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero. (Reporting by Sami Torma; editing by Will Waterman/Andrew Hurst)