OREANDA-NEWS. September 10, 2015.  IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a five-and-half-year services agreement to help Finnair, Finland’s largest airline, provide its customers with new, digital services such as mobile on-flight services. The agreement will continue Finnair’s work to use IT to further its business strategy, transforming the airline’s current technology infrastructure into a flexible, hybrid cloud platform.

Airlines are increasingly challenged to better manage costs, grow revenue and compete for customer loyalty. Digitalization, delivering a unique customer experience and achieving world-class operations are at the core of Finnair's growth strategy, and world class IT infrastructure and services are essential enablers of it. As part of the agreement announced today, IBM will establish the new Finnair Cloud Platform to provide a foundation for the airline to support its growth initiatives. With the cloud platform, Finnair will reduce IT complexity, gain more flexibility to support dynamic business changes and significantly lower costs by consolidating applications.

"For a network airline, operational excellence is a key success factor, and efficient IT services are a key enabler in this. IBM understands us, and has the airline industry expertise to help us achieve our goals,” said Kari Saarikoski, Chief Information Officer at Finnair. “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.”

IBM will serve as Finnair’s IT services integrator by providing governance and support that will allow multiple technology solution vendors serving the airline to operate in a more transparent and efficient manner. In this role, IBM will oversee vendor performance, drive service quality improvements and help ensure airline industry best practices are adhered to.

The Finnair Cloud Platform will integrate several operational and commercial services, maximizing the hybrid cloud environment to support Finnair’s business goals. The company will also have access to IBM Watson Explorer capabilities to improve employee productivity by enabling agents to more quickly find responses to customer needs and intelligent, online self-help tools for employees to locate information.

“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.”

IBM Cloud offers one of the industry’s largest portfolio of software, services, datacenter solutions and consulting for private, public and hybrid cloud environments. Total revenue for IBM Cloud was \\$8.7 billion, for the second quarter, ending June 30, 2015, \\$4.5 billion of which was attributed to XaaS. IBM is helping organizations large and small adopt, manage, scale and benefit from open cloud technologies.

About IBM
For more information about IBM travel and transportation industry expertise, please visit www.ibm.com/industries/traveltransportation/

About Finnair

Finnair flies between Asia, Europe and North America with an emphasis on fast connections via Helsinki, carrying more than nine million passengers annually and connecting 15 cities in Asia with more than 60 destinations in Europe. The airline, a pioneer in sustainable flying, is the European launch customer of the next-generation, eco-smart Airbus A350 XWB aircraft and is the first airline listed in the Leadership Index of the worldwide Carbon Disclosure Project. The only Nordic carrier with a 4-star Skytrax ranking, Finnair has also won the World Airline Award for Best Airline Northern Europe for the past six years running. Finnair is a member of oneworld, the alliance of the world's leading airlines committed to providing the highest level of service and convenience to frequent international travelers. www.finnair.com