Finnair, Helsinki Airport and Reaktor challenge developers to create new services to air travelers
Technology developers are being given the opportunity to create a new era of travel tech.
The "Future of Travel" hackathon event ‒ organised by Finnair, Finavia’s Helsinki Airport and Reaktor ‒ sets developers the unique task of developing new services for airline passengers.
This is the first time that an airline, an airport and a technology provider are involved in the Hackathon, which is held in connection with Slush, the start-up event which connects entrepreneurs and tech talent with top-tier international investors, executives and the media.
The Hackathon is an open innovation event where teams of five have 48 hours to develop new ideas and digital innovations based on open data and system interfaces (APIs).
The team that creates the best user experience will be declared the winners, with the prospect of further developing their idea with the support from Finnair, Finavia and Reaktor Ventures. Around 500 developers are expected to take part with over one hundred joining the Air Travel track.
Finnair and Reaktor have made major steps in digitalisation. Evidence of which is seen in Finnair's new A350 XWB aircraft which features the state-of-the-art Nordic Sky entertainment system with Wi-Fi, as well as the updated mobile apps for android and iOS, including the Apple Watch.
"Finnair and Helsinki Airport have largely common customers, and we believe this is an excellent opportunity to combine our data from our customer interfaces to innovate new services for the various stages of air travelling," says Jouni Oksanen, Finnair's Vice President, Digital Finnair.
"For Finavia and Helsinki Airport to be successful in the international competition, it is important that the airport experience is excellent. Our goal is to develop totally new services for air travel, which utilise personalisation and positioning, for example. Attending the unique hackathon shows the forerunner attitude we are known by", says Heikki Koski, Helsinki Airport's Vice President at Finavia.
"Reaktor is a great advocate of opening up industries to talented creators from outside said industries. It makes these ecosystems prone to innovations that may have seemed otherwise impossible, or too obvious to be successes. In air travel, we have found two very strong allies in Finnair and Finavia ‒ who believe in the power of service design and rapid prototyping as much as we do. This industry needs more of that,” says Fernando Leon, an evangelist for Reaktor.aero.
The "Future of Travel" hackathon will be held on November 6-8 at Suvilahti in Helsinki.
Finnair and Finavia’s Helsinki Airport are main partners of Slush, which takes place on November 11-12. Reaktor is key partner of Slush.
http://hackjunction.com/
http://futureoftravel.co/
Further information:
Finnair Media Desk, +358 9 818 4020, comms(a)finnair.com
www.finnair.com, www.finnairgroup.com
www.twitter.com/Finnair
www.facebook.com/finnair
www.instagram.com/feelfinnair
www.youtube.com/finnair
Images: gallery.finnair.com
Finnair blog: blogs.finnair.com
Finavia Media Desk, +358 20 708 2002, comms(a)finavia.fi
www.finavia.fi, www.helsinkiairport.fi
www.facebook.com/helsinkiairport
www.twitter.com/helsinkiairport
www.instagram.com/helsinkiairport
www.vk.com/helsinkiairport
Communications and Marketing, Reaktor: Jani Hellström, +358 400 272 515, jani.hellstrom(a)reaktor.com
Reaktor: www.reaktor.com
Reaktor on Twitter: twitter.com/ReaktorNow
Reaktor on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WeAreReaktor
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 17 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 travellers.
About Finavia and Helsinki Airport
Helsinki Airport, operated by Finavia, is the leading long-haul transfer hub in Northern Europe with its 16 million passengers per year, 15 direct destinations to Asia and a vast network covering the whole of Europe. Our unique Nordic atmosphere with extensive services provides numerous possibilities for experiencing and enjoying a smooth stay at Helsinki Airport. We have everything under one roof, and therefore also the transfer times are as short as 40 minutes. Altogether Finavia maintains and develops a network of 24 airports in Finland. Our service promise is ‘for smooth travelling’, which means that we do our everything to make passengers’ journey as safe, pleasurable and effective as possible.
