aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
130 SEPTEMBER 2019
Finnair
MD11
In the early 2000s Finnair was coming under
some pressure from competitors and felt
that if it didn’t offer beds in business class
soon, it would lose many of its key ‘gateway’
customers who fly between Europe and Asia
via Helsinki – a route considered the fastest
and most direct between Europe and Asia.
A replacement of the airline’s intercontinental
fleet of six MD-11s, the first of which went into service
in December 1990, was dismissed as management were
happy with their performance. Instead Finnair decided
to refurbish the aircraft cabins, with Markku Remes,
then intercontinental product manager, put in charge.
“The cabin environment is like a business card. We
always want to leave a good impression of this country
and the airline itself – that’s why we wanted to make
it as comfortable as possible,” recalls Remes, who
recently retired after a long career with the airline.
However, while sticking with the MD-11s simplified
life for the airline’s operations, it did create issues for
the team’s passenger experience ambitions. As Pertti
Ollila, then head of service product management
explains, “There were certain configuration and
certification issues – the cabin went from 2-2-2 to 2-3-
2, and this reduced the pool of seat manufacturers.”
Indeed this configuration only left a choice of two
suppliers at the time: EADS Sogerma (now Stelia
Aerospace) and Sicma (now Safran Seats). The Finnair
team also undertook a number of fact-finding flights to
check out airlines who already offered lie-flat products,
including Swiss, Lufthansa, SAS and British Airways.
This was no clandestine research mission though,
as Ollila recalls, “We were welcomed. They had made
their choices already, so they had the seats and could
tell us quite a lot of the pros and cons to look out
for – we actually shared our ideas all the time.”
“We found many of the seats we tested to be too
deeply angled for comfortable sleep,” adds Remes,
without naming the culprits. “We were also unhappy
with the lack of width of many seats when fully reclined,
due to the armrests remaining rigid – so we absolutely
wanted a seat with armrests that went down.”
Thus the Finnair cabin team liked that the armrests
of Sicma’s Majesty seat dropped to fit flush with the
sleeping surface when reclined, and following a trial
period, the seat was selected. To accommodate the seat
and to further enhance comfort, the airline increased
seat pitch in business class from 50in to 63in, though
that also reduced overall seat count from 42 seats to 36.
This reduction in cabin density did not concern Ollila
though, who recalls, “We very seldom had more than 36
full-fare paying passengers anyway. With fewer seats
we could still generate better revenues, so long as we
restricted lower-level fare access.”
Nearly 15 years later, the airline has grown rapidly,
with its A350s and their ‘Space Alive’ cabin design
concept being another great example of Finnish style.
RIGHT: THE SICMA MAJESTY ANGLED
LIE-FLAT WAS SELECTED FOR THE
MD-11 DUE TO ITS STOWABLE
ARMRESTS AND STORAGE SPACE
BELOW: THE AIRLINE CREATED
A FINNISH FEEL FOR THE TRIM
AND FINISH, WITH KEY THEMES
INCLUDING SAFETY AND RELIABILITY,
FRESHNESS EXPRESSED THROUGH
COOL BLUES SUGGESTIVE OF ICY
WATERS AND OPEN SPACES,
AND ‘FINNISHNESS’ A VAGUE
BUT LOVELY MIX OF NATURE,
TECHNOLOGY AND BEAUTY
R ETROSPECTION
KEN FIELDING -FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/KENFIELDING
JAVIER BRAVO MUÑOZ
/aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
/KENFIELDING