SUPPORT SERVICES SAFEGUARD QUALITY
The Aviation Services division consists of Finnair Ground Handling, which provides ground handling services, Finnair Catering, which produces meals for flights and engages in sales activities, and Finnair Technical, which provides aircraft maintenance services. These key support functions for flight operations make a vital contribution to Finnair's renowned and reliable quality. Finnair Facilities Management Oy, which is responsible for managing the Finnair Group's real estate and for providing office services, joined the Aviation Services division at the beginning of 2004.
Ground Handling
Finnair Ground Handling (FGH) is responsible for Finnair's passenger services as well as for the loading of baggage, cargo and mail in connection with the arrival and departure of aircraft at all of Finland's airports, either independently or with the assistance of partners.
FGH, as the market leader in its field in Finland, provides ground handling services to Finnair and nearly 20 other airlines. Every year the unit's 900 employees and 200 additional staff employed by ten partners handle over 100,000 flights as well as eight million passengers and their baggage.
Demand for services fluctuates strongly according to passenger volumes in different seasons of the year, at certain times of the week and at particular times during the day. The multitasking abilities of service production staff at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport have been broadened. This enables staff to work more efficiently at different workpoints throughout the airport.
FGH expanded its operations at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport when its subsidiary FinnHandling AB began providing ground handling services in June. A completely new service production model guarantees services that are flexible and rapidly adaptable to changes, in partnership with a staff hire company specializing in air transport.
The outsourcing of ground handling at domestic airports continued. Cooperation with entrepreneurs expanded at five airports, bringing the number to twelve. FGH provided services itself at five airports.
Turnover has increased and profitability has improved. The number of employees decreased during the year by around 15 per cent.
The operations of the Finnair Ground Handling business unit will be transferred into a wholly owned subsidiary of Finnair Plc as of May 1, 2004. The Finnair Plc subsidiary FinnHandling AB, which has operated under the FGH business unit at Stockholm Arlanda since June 2003, will become at the same time a subsidiary of the new company.
Catering
This business area comprises Finnair Catering Oy and its subsidiary Finncatering Oy. Finnair Catering is responsible for the logistics of catering services, for part of meal preparation and for sales that take place at airports and on flights. Finncatering produces meals for leisure flights and for European economy class, and supplies catering products to retail food outlets.
Changes in client airlines' operations have also affected Finnair Catering's activities. A division of labour that previously lay between the subsidiary Finncatering Oy, which supplied leisure flights, and Finnair Catering Oy has been changed such that in Finnair Catering Oy's operations the significance of logistics is given greater emphasis relative to the actual preparation of meals.
Finnair Catering Oy is one of the world's leading catering companies in environmental matters. Rapid changes in the operating environment, however, are setting new challenges to Finnair Catering Oy's environmental management system. The environmental impact of the services provided are monitored systematically and their effect on the environment is also assessed in connection with operational changes.
In Finnair Catering Oy and in Finncatering Oy, production has been adapted and processes adjusted in accordance with the Finnair Group's operational efficiency programme to achieve further improvements in efficiency. Finnair Catering Oy has some 700 employees and Finncatering 170 employees.
Technical services
Finnair Technical provides high quality technical services, primarily for Finnair but also for other airlines, of which the largest is Lufthansa Cargo. Another Finnair Technical customer, the French airline AirLib, was declared bankrupt last year. The capacity freed by this turn of events was utilized in the implementation of cost-cutting measures.
The unit's services range from full-scale servicing and overhauls to small, individual repair jobs. The first overhauls on Airbus A320 series aircraft taken into service in 1999 were performed during 2003. Aircraft must undergo such overhauls every few years.
Finnair Technical's engine repair shop also performed the first overhauls on the environmentally friendly CFM engines used on the Airbus aircraft. The longest-serving aircraft of the Boeing B757 fleet used in Finnair's Leisure Traffic operations also underwent their first overhauls.
As part of process and systems development, Finnair Technical has initiated a project with the aim of replacing several operational management and procurement systems.
Structural arrangements advanced further when a Technical Services unit was created within Finnair's Scheduled Passenger Traffic division. The unit will be responsible for purchasing aircraft maintenance work and optimizing maintenance costs. The planning and description of the unit's operations have been ongoing since autumn 2003. The arrangement will come into effect during the second quarter of 2004. |