Finavia has already used data on airport activities to develop its customer experience—for example, by managing rush hours, optimising passenger routes and targeting airport services.
That data will now be made available to businesses operating at the airport as well as software developers, allowing companies to make use of the better availability of business data. For instance, companies can make the data a part of a software application or utilise it in other ways.
Air traffic development portal for software developers and partners
Last summer, Finavia quietly launched the Finavia Developer Portal. Its application programming interfaces (APIs) allow partner companies and software developers to utilise business data and services from different airports.
“Our objective is to share information with different parties in an easy and more open manner in order to help companies improve their customer experience and make their business more efficient. Data offers companies methods for information-based management and growing their business,” explains Tommi Vihervaara, Head of Data at Finavia.
“Finavia’s API services could promote new innovations in the development of trip chains, for example”
Vihervaara says that the developer portal has proven its worth. More than 50 organisations have already registered with Finavia’s service. Finavia can fully monitor how the APIs are used and has complete control over which parties have access to which services.
“Finavia currently offers two completely public APIs. In addition, our partner companies have access to a dozen Partner API services. In addition, the development work of our own IT architects is supported by our internal Private APIs. The best feature is that Finavia’s API services could promote new innovations, such as in the development of trip chains. We also want to use this to promote the activities of new types of MaaS operators,” Vihervaara says.
According to Heikki Koski, Chief Digital Officer at Finavia, in the future, Finavia will be simultaneously a digital service provider and an airport infrastructure company.
“Other European airport companies are just getting started with sharing their data through APIs. Finavia wants to be a forerunner in this field and contribute actively to developing travel-related services in Finland,” Koski says.
Finavia’s Developer Portal currently contains public APIs for flight information and queue times at Helsinki Airport’s security control. Partner APIs are available for companies operating at the airport for data concerning, for example, parking. After signing up for a user account, the public contents are at your disposal.
