Following the modernization project, the Traffic system that is vital to an airline's operations produces higher-quality and more reliable data, making daily life easier for employees
Finnair is a network airline that provides people in Finland with comprehensive flight connections and connects Europe, the United States and Asia through its hub, Helsinki Airport. Established in 1923, Finnair is one of the world's oldest still-operating airlines.
Finnair uses a Traffic system that collects actual data on operated flights from various source systems almost in real time. The actual data includes aircraft identification, type of flight, fuel consumption, number of passengers, available seats, flight distance and precise scheduling information.
The Traffic system is crucial for Finnair because it serves as a data source for a wide range of operational systems, including ticket revenue calculation, profitability calculation and various systems that use operational flight data. Public traffic reporting is also based on the data obtained from the Traffic system.
There are several data sources that produce overlapping data in some respects. The company needs to be able to retrieve the latest and most accurate information from among the multiple sources. After consolidation, the company needs to be able to make manual corrections to the data before public disclosures. The system is updated at one-hour intervals and sends data to downstream systems once a day. It is a system that contains a lot of business logic, the consolidation of data from various systems, and the maintenance of data.
"I'm very satisfied with the outcome of the project. The new solution helps me in my daily work through improved data quality and reliability. This enables us to further increase the efficiency of our operations. I was also pleased with the co-operation during the project and Invenco's [now part of Innofactor] excellent contribution," says Revenue and Traffic Reporting Director Maija Laurén, the person in charge of the Traffic solution at Finnair.
Finnair did not start building Traffic from scratch. The maintenance of the previous system required a lot of work, both internally by Finnair and by the supplier. A code-based approach was out of the question, as there is a lot of logic involved with the system. The chosen technology solution was Informatica, which Finnair was already using before the project, along with an Oracle database and a web-based Java user interface. Databases, XML files and text files were used as the integration interfaces.
Invenco found it easy to get involved with the project, as the terminology and operating conditions of the aviation industry were familiar to the company from previous projects. Invenco has previously implemented a profitability calculation application for Finnair, among other projects.
Due to the shortcomings identified in the previous system, Finnair had a good idea of how the new system should work. The project started with a compact team of just a few experts who had a strong commitment to the project, both on Finnair's side and Invenco's side. This was the key to the project's success.
With a five-month turnaround time, the project had a tight schedule considering the demanding nature of the solution that was developed. Nevertheless, the project was completed on schedule, and it came in slightly under budget.
The outcome was satisfactory to all of the parties involved. The new solution is both simpler and more reliable than its predecessor.
"I'm very satisfied with the outcome of the project. The new solution helps me in my daily work through improved data quality and reliability."
Maija Laurén
Traffic solutions specialist
Finnair
The following solutions, among others, are part of the overall solution implemented for Finnair:
On June 30, 2022, Innofactor acquired the entire share capital of Invenco Oy, a privately owned company specializing in data solutions. As of July 1, 2022, Invenco Oy's name was changed to Innofactor Invenco Oy. Invenco's employees continue their work with the new company. The roles and duties of Invenco's experts remained unchanged.
Please refer to our stock exchange release for more information on the acquisition.
Stock exchange release: Innofactor acquires Invenco
