Finnair And IBM Sign Five-Year Cloud Services Deal

Finnish national airline Finnair has signed a five-year deal with IBM to roll out mobile in-flight services to its 10 million annual passengers.

IBM will concoct the new ‘Finnair Cloud Platform’ that will act as the foundation for the in-flight services, as well as the basis for the airline’s new cloud infrastructure

Watson

Finnair employees will also get access to IBM Watson, in the form of the platform’s Explorer capabilities, so that they can use Watson’s artificial intelligence to answer customer queries faster and more intelligently.

“This services agreement and powerful new cloud infrastructure are at the heart of our plans to improve our operational efficiency and provide the foundation for new digital services to deliver a better experience to our customers,” said Kari Saarikoski, chief information officer at Finnair.

Finnair explained how, like many other airlines, its business has to keep up with ‘digitalisation’ to stay ahead of the competition. Finnair is being increasingly challenged to better manage its costs, grow revenue and compete for customer loyalty.

With the cloud platform, Finnair claims it will be able to reduce IT complexity, gain more flexibility to support fast-moving business changes and lower costs by consolidating applications.

“This partnership represents a significant opportunity for Finnair to restructure its IT capabilities and reduce the complexities associated with operating a large airline,” said Tuomo Haukkovaara, managing executive, IBM Finland.

“IBM Cloud serves as the foundation for compelling new services for customers and will help Finnair accelerate revenue growth while lowering IT costs.”

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