Airport book swap, new meal initiatives and so many more…

Once again you have given us some super-valuable feedback on how to improve air travel – thank you so much! We received over 250 development ideas, went through all of them, shortlisted the most potential ones and asked you to tell, which of them would best improve air travel. Environmentally friendly meal initiative and airport book swap emerged as the public’s favourite ideas for Finnair and Helsinki Airport to implement.

The eco-friendly book swap for passengers to trade second-hand books is aimed to be introduced in early 2012. Practicalities involved in offering “Meat Free Monday”, meant to decrease the food service related carbon footprint, as well as some other food-related suggestions, are being investigated.

Some ideas, such as developing family travel in business environment and improving luggage claim areas, have been selected to undergo internal development processes.

Overwhelmed by the richness of ideas received from the Quality Hunters and from the public, Finnair and Helsinki Airport are considering more entries for implementation. An art gallery, for example, will open up at Helsinki Airport in 2012.

“We are thrilled with the quality of ideas we have received, and our intention is to relay the benefits of the project to our passengers by putting into practice as many ideas as possible as soon as we can”, says Johanna Metsälä, Customer Experience Manager at Helsinki Airport.

“Our initiative clearly shows that initiating a frank and open dialogue between airlines, airports and their passengers can have tremendous results”, says Antti Nieminen, Marketing Innovations Director at Finnair.

Follow @qualityhunters on Twitter to join the discussion on how to improve air travel and to follow up the implementation of the development ideas. We are definitely not ending here…