Finnair has successfully switched all its departure control activity to the new generation technology Amadeus Altea platform. Finnair is also the first airline to implement the new Altea Self Service Check-in solution, which expands the choice of check-in channels for the airline’s customers to include web, mobile phone (SMS and MMS), as well as airport kiosks.

The last phase of the transition to the new departure control platform involved migration of Finnair’s passenger check-in at 63 airports world-wide. This was carried out with minimal disruption to the airline’s operations and concluded on 29 April.

“The migration of our departure control system is the last step in a strategic project that will strengthen our business. Our operations spanning Europe and Asia require systems that easily and quickly adjust to new market demands”, says Finnair's Tom Kallstrom, VP e-business development.

Altea brings a series of advantages for Finnair. “For the first time, our passenger service systems are fully integrated, from sales - offline and online - through to departure control. Finnair can now move from a project mode to a process mode, which means that we can now concentrate on fine-tuning our businesses and we can also  react quicker and be more proactive  to new business demands,” continues Tom Kallstrom.

“Finnair is the third airline to deploy the new Altea Departure Control system,” says Julia Sattel, Vice President, Airline IT, at Amadeus. “This last module of our new generation customer management solution demonstrates robustness and we are now expanding our technical capability in the airport environment with Finnair.” 

Multiple channel self-service check-in, inter-airline check-in and the outsourcing of first-line help desk support, as well as communication infrastructure that uses the latest network technology to link the airline’s airport facilities with the Amadeus data centre, are all new services Amadeus has also rolled out for Finnair.

To date over 50 airlines have opted for the full Altea CMS, while some 100 other airlines use at least one component of Altea CMS. Amongst these are six of the nine partner members of Finnair’s oneworld global airline alliance.