Finnair earns IATA's Fast Travel Gold Award
(Warsaw 10.6.2013) Finnair has been presented with a Fast Travel Gold Award for implementing IATA’s Fast Travel program at Helsinki Airport. Designed to reduce queues at airports and give passengers more options for self-service, the automation program covers check-in, baggage drop, document check, boarding, flight rebooking and bag recovery.
Finnair has introduced automated processes for all of these activities at Helsinki Airport and many other outstations as well, particularly in Europe.
“Both internally and with partners, we have worked very hard on making the air travel experience at Helsinki Airport as effortless as possible from the customer’s point of view, and we are grateful for IATA’s recognition of what we have accomplished so far,” says Anssi Komulainen, Finnair’s SVP, Customer Service. “We look forward to bringing more of these improvements to other airports abroad where possible.”
At Helsinki Airport, if passengers have not already checked in online, they are automatically checked-in several hours before their flight. They can also print their own baggage tags if they wish, and can go through security and board their flights with boarding passes delivered straight to their mobile phones.
Passengers from the EU and selected other countries such as Japan can also make use of self-service passport scanners when leaving or entering the Schengen zone, thus speeding up airport formalities and reducing queues for passengers from other countries.
These improvements are made possible in part thanks to close cooperation with airport operator Finavia, the Finnish Border Guard and other airport partners and technology providers.
“We are pleased to present this well-deserved Fast Travel Gold Award to Finnair for implementing all six IATA Fast Travel initiatives in Helsinki Airport,” says Rafael Schvartzman, IATA’s Regional Vice President Europe. “This is a testament of Finnair’s commitment to continuously improve the entire travel experience for their passengers.”
More information:
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Finnair (www.finnair.com) is specialised in fast connections between Europe and Asia via Helsinki. The airline carries more than eight million passengers annually and connects 13 cities in Asia with more than 60 destinations in Europe. The airline, a pioneer in sustainable flying, operates a modern fleet and is the first airline named to the Leadership Index of the worldwide Carbon Disclosure Project. Finnair has also won Skytrax’s World Airline Award for Best Airline Northern Europe for the past three years running. Finnair is a member of oneworld, the leading quality airline alliance.
