Finnair first in the world with E-mail on all long-haul flights

Finnair is to revolutionise air travel by being the first airline in the world to equip its entire long-haul fleet with an e-mail system. Finnair Oyj and Tenzing Communications signed a preliminary agreement at the Paris Air Show on June 20th 2001 which will enable the use of e-mail on Finnair's Business Class long haul flights.

The availability of e-mail on aircraft is the latest link in Finnair's entire range of electronic services, which include Neticket, which allows flight reservation and ticket payment; the Internet based eCheck-in do-it-yourself check-in service, wireless local area networks in lounges and the automatic eGate departure gate.

The new e-mail system will be available on all long distance Asian and North American flights by February 15th 2002. The installation work will be carried out on the MD11 aircraft in conjunction with the expansion of their Business Class facilities, when the capacity will be increased from 28 seats to 42 seats. Finnair's research showed that over 70 per cent of business travellers expressed an interest in the service.

In addition to allowing transmission and reception of e-mails, the new service will enable passengers to surf selected www sites. The server on the aircraft will be provided with those sites which are of most use to airline passengers.

These services will work almost in real time since the aircraft servers will be in contact with the ground, and the server content will be updated and transferred at short intervals throughout the flight.

Passengers will be able to install a programme into their laptop computers in advance, which will enable them to use the service. During the flight they can then connect their own computers into the socket fitted to their seats, which will provide them access to the aircraft's own intranet system.

Initially, the e-mail service will only be available in Business Class, but once official approval has been received during 2002 for a wireless local area network it shall be extended to Tourist Class as well.