Introducing the next steps on our journey towards modern airline retailing

Finnair continues to be at the forefront of digital transformation, and we are committed to driving the technology change that is key to provide more dynamic, richer customer experiences. With digital transformation we aim to enable faster innovation and enhance ability to support customer choice and fast evolving customer needs. This is our key focus area across the channels – covering both direct and indirect channel development.

During 2023 we introduced various initiatives related to the transformation and the journey will continue this year. Our long-term IT investment in the new Offer and Order System will form the basis for the new airline retailing architecture, which will be supplemented by various enhanced processes built during the upcoming years. Continuous pricing will continue to be expanded to new routes and new air-related products will be launched throughout this year, mainly to be available through modern sales channels* only. The best content will also continue to be available via the modern channels and the portion of content still available via legacy EDIFACT technology will be more limited. 

The next concrete step is that we will start to limit availability of Classic ticket type in European short haul traffic in EDIFACT distribution. Limitation of availability will be carried out in phases and the first phase will include leisure focused routes to/from Croatia, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. This limitation will be in effect starting 02 April 2024 and it only applies to EDIFACT technology. All content will remain to be available to customers when purchased on Finnair’s own channels and via NDC enabled travel agents.

We have been encouraging our travel agent partners to start shifting from legacy EDIFACT technology to new NDC technology and we have seen great progress especially during the last year. NDC distribution will continue to bring more value to travel agents and it will form the baseline for the new modern distribution. Travel agents can utilize Finnair NDC distribution via any of the possible channels: Finnair Agency Sales Tool – FAST, certified Finnair NDC Aggregators and NDC Direct Connect API. More information can be found on NDC section here in Easy.  

*Modern sales channels include Finnair’s own direct as well as modern, digital indirect channels.