The ANS ISO 9001 project started in August 2023 was successfully completed when Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services received ISO 9001 certification in June. Both the Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits required for certification were passed without deviations. How will the ISO 9001 compliant quality management system affect air navigation services in the future? What is the significance of the certificate for Fintraffic Air Navigation Services Ltd as a company?
ISO 9001 is an international standard that specifies requirements for a quality management system (QMS). The standard helps organisations to ensure the quality of their products and services as well as customer satisfaction. The ANS ISO 9001 project involved creating a QMS compliant with the standard that could be integrated to the existing management system. Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services passed the Stage 1 external audit in March and the Stage 2 audit in late May. The company passed both audits without deviations. The company became officially ISO 9001 certified on 7 June 2024.
‘We worked hard on updating, supplementing and correcting the air navigation services documentation and procedures in early spring. After we passed the Stage 1 audit, we further supplemented the processes and documentation in April and May, carried out the internal audits required by ISO 9001, and carried out an extensive management review on the updated operations. The Stage 2 audit was carried out in May, and among others, the auditors interviewed airport ATS managers, and operative and technical staff at the network airports in Turku and Pirkkala, in addition to the staff at our head office. These were important visits, because they highlighted that the activities of air navigation services everywhere in Finland had been addressed in the development of the new QMS’, says Matts-Anders Nyberg, Director at Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services.
‘The certification is a concrete recognition of the quality of all our air navigation services. Although the ISO 9001 certification does not introduce any large changes to our operative air navigation services, many practices were made more specific and processes more efficient, and we streamlined our operations,’ says Johanna Ojanen, Quality Manager at Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services.
The Aviation Information Service (AIS) of Air Navigation Services has been ISO 9001 certified for two decades already. Now, AIS’s certification, which was commendably maintained, was integrated under the certification covering the entire company. Kiwa Inspecta evaluated and certified the new QMS.
More systematic operations and new commercial opportunities
Many of the elements of the QMS were already in use, because the approval granted by Traficom to Fintraffic ANS requires that its activities are in line with aviation legislation. However, ISO 9001 compliance helps air navigation services to operate according to different official requirements and legislation even better than before. In addition, it makes management and daily work more systematic and efficient.
‘Customer relationship management, customer satisfaction monitoring, and risk assessment and management are the key areas that the ISO 9001 standard makes more systematic. Our new customer feedback channel is one the concrete upgrades that we introduced with the updated QMS. The certification also improves our capabilities to participate in international calls for tenders that include ISO 9001 certification as a requirement,’ says Nyberg about the benefits of the QMS.
The new QMS helps Fintraffic communicate on its air navigation service activities and quality targets to its customers and stakeholder more systematically. In future, stakeholders of Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services can also refer to the quality certification in their own audits and focus even more on the interfaces of the companies, because they can be sure that the general management system and documentation of the air navigation services are in line with the international standard.
Basis for developing the company’s operations
The certification serves as a basis for Fintraffic’s Air Navigation Services upon which the company can further develop its operations by making use of the tools provided by the QMS.
‘Our objective is to use the QMS to collect all the good practices that we can use to develop our operations to create the safest, smoothest and most environmentally friendly traffic in the world as stated in our strategy’, says Nyberg.
