LHR to HEL Finnair Business Class

Airline:  Finnair

Flight #: AY1332

Route:    LHR-HEL

Class:    Business

Seat:     12L

Date:     Tuesday 21^st May 2024

Since signing up for British Airway’s (BA) Executive Club more than a decade ago, I’ve accrued a decent amount of Avios points by using BA’s online shopping portal and earning Avios however I can get my hands on some. Back in 2019 saved Avios paid for my flights to and from Madrid in Business Class with BA and Iberia (read those early blogs here and here), and now it was time to spend some more. Two flights with another BA partner airline were booked and I was heading to another new country!

I’d decided to book some flights with Finnair, one of BA’s partner airlines in the Oneworld alliance, and was heading to Helsinki, the capital of Finland for a couple of nights. As well as being a new airline and a new country for me, the outbound flight from Heathrow to Helsinki would also give me the opportunity to try out a new aircraft, the Airbus A350. With enough Avios in the bank, I’d also booked both legs in Business Class, allowing me to see the differences between a narrow-body aircraft and a wide-body.

Having had a meeting in London the night before, it hadn’t been worth travelling back home and then back to Heathrow and so I stayed the night at the Premier Inn at Terminal 4. From here to Finnair’s London home of Terminal 3, it was a quick transfer via the Elisabeth Line to Terminals 2 & 3 and then a short walk to Terminal 3 itself. Whilst I’ve flown from Heathrow semi-regularly, this was my first flight from Terminal 3 since I flew to Australia via Bangkok with Thai Airways in 2011. The world of aviation has certainly changed since then, not least in that Thai Airways has retired all of its Boeing 747s and now flies Boeing 777s to Heathrow.

Finnair’s check-in was in Zone C and despite me opting to check my bag in, the process was really quick and I had managed to reach the security queue at 0730, just 10 minutes after getting off the train. As I had a Business Class ticket, I was given access to ‘Fast-Track’ security, however this turned out to be anything but with only 2 lanes open and lots of people ahead of me. As Heathrow has the new security scanners in place, I didn’t need to take anything out of my bag, although I did still need to empty my pockets and remove my belt. Because its typical of my luck, I also got randomly selected for additional screening and eventually made it through to departures after 20 minutes.

Another perk of a Business Class ticket is access to an airline lounge to relax, enjoy some food and drink and wait away the time until your flight. Finnair doesn’t have its own lounge at Heathrow and so a Business Class ticket with them gains you access to the lounge of Oneworld partner, Cathay Pacific. Located upstairs near gate 10, Cathay Pacific actually have two lounges here, one for First Class customer and one for Business Class. The latter was really spacious and, at the time I was visiting, really quiet as there were no Cathay Pacific flights departing in the next few hours.

In the lounge there was a wide range of options for seating, including some very comfortable chairs that looked out over part of the apron and southern runway. Surprising no-one, this is where I settled down until my flight! Food wise there was a choice of a western buffet breakfast or Asian food options that were mostly cooked fresh to order. Spoilt for choice, I had a small western breakfast followed by some steaming Dim Sum, which were absolutely delicious and, combined with copious amounts of coffee, set me up for a day of adventure!

Boarding announced around 35 mins before departure, and it was a bit of a trek to Gate 31, which was almost at the opposite end of the terminal from the lounge. However, Finnair were getting in on the #BoardingNotBoarding game and so whilst everyone else with priority boarding was just first in the queue within the holding pen, I had a fairly short wait before we actually boarded the aircraft. Our aircraft for the flight was OH-LWC, an 8-year-old Airbus A350-900 which had been delivered new to Finnair in November 2015. It had flown overnight from Hong Kong to Helsinki, before forming the first flight of the day to London.

Onboard, Finnair have dispensed with First Class and have Business Class split into two cabins, a large one with eight or nine rows between the main door and the flight deck and a smaller one with only three rows between the main door and Economy. Business is laid out in a 1-2-1 configuration in both cabins and there are a couple of rows with just a single seat to allow for various aircraft equipment including the galley. I was in seat 12L, the last seat on the right-hand side before Economy, however it hadn’t been as easy as it should have been to select this.

With seat selection included with Business Class tickets, I had logged on shortly after booking to pick my seats and, whilst successfully selecting my return seat, the system wouldn’t let me book my outbound. I tried again a few weeks before flying with the same result and eventually made it through the online chat queue where a member of customer services managed to re-set the booking to allow me to select a seat. I went for 12L as it was in the smaller cabin and, with the curtain to Economy behind me, wouldn’t be a thoroughfare for other passengers.

Finnair’s Business Class seats are essentially large ‘pods’ that are a bit of a weird shape and forgo the traditional ‘seat’, allowing you to relax in whatever way feels most comfortable. As such there’s no recline, although the foot/leg rest does come up to provide a flat surface for sleep or for you to sit with your legs up. This is how I found myself for most of the flight, with some cushion to provide added back support. Essentially the ‘seat’ is a bit odd, but is generally comfortable and allows flexibility.

The ‘pods’ all have a large in-flight entertainment (IFE) screen, wireless and traditional charging, plenty of storage (although the small cupboard behind the right shoulder is a bit awkward) and a large tray table. A bottle of water and what turned out to be poor quality headphones were waiting for me and I was soon settled in ready for taxi and take-off. As I explored the IFE I was pleased to find Finnair had opted to install the cameras that are available as part of the A350 product, with both downward and tail cameras available for passengers to watch.

Whilst boarding was complete at 1014, we didn’t begin our pushback until 1035 as, according to the Captain’s announcement the bags were slow to be loaded. With an expected flight time of 2 hours and 20 minutes, I was keen to get into the air and enjoy the flight, and thankfully we managed to queue jump a few other aircraft waiting for departure. This included N794UA, a Star Alliance liveried United Airlines Boeing 777-200ER that was beginning its journey to Houston. We took off at 1058 and were quickly into the low cloud that covered Heathrow.

As the cloud obscured the cameras, I decided to explore what else the IFE had to offer and found it had Angry Birds amongst the selection of games. Unfortunately just as I was starting to get the hang of it again, the IFE system decided to re-set, however around the same time the in-flight service also began so I’d have had to stop playing anyway. Service started with a hot towel, with drinks and mini-pretzels following shortly after. I went for a Finnish beer, Sandels, and Finnair’s traditional blueberry juice, which was very refreshing.

Whilst waiting for the in-flight meal to be served, I watched a Finnair 100 Years mini-documentary on the IFE and then settled in to a few episodes of Friends to tide me over. The meal was a chicken breast served with peas, carrot mash and a sauce, followed by a feta cheese and strawberry desert(?) and a chocolate bar. Whilst some of the flavours were a bit interesting (the peas had been cooked in a style I hadn’t come across before), everything was delicious and overall really good for airline food.

Having traversed the North Sea, we passed over Denmark mid-way between the cities of Aalborg and Aarhus, cruising at an altitude of 12500m (or 41,000 feet in old money), before then crossing the Kattegat and the Swedish coast between Gothenburg and Halmstad. The Swedish peninsula was quickly crossed, and we were soon flying over Sweden’s eastern coast south of Nyköping and across the Baltic Sea towards the Gulf of Finland. As we crossed the Baltic, I decided to get some more writing done for the last hour or so of the flight, with Business Class passengers also getting an hour’s complementary WiFi access. Unfortunately I couldn’t seem to get this to actually work and so my draft blog had quite a few ‘TBC’ areas that I’d need to research when I was back on the ground.

The last leg of the flight saw us following the southern coast of Finland for a while, and I was able to clearly see the Estonian coast across the Gulf of Finland from the right hand side of the aircraft. After following the coast for a while, we eventually made a turn inland, crossing the coastline over Gräsa in southwest Helsinki. After a smooth approach with views over Helsinki, we touched down on Runway 04R at 1521, six minutes later than our booked arrival at 1515.

A short taxi later and we were on stand, with doors open at 1529. From the International gates at Helsinki, it was quite a walk through the terminal to passport control. Passing through the border itself was unproblematic, although the border police asked me the most questions, I’ve ever had entering Europe. Finally, I was cursing my past self for checking my back, as I had a long wait for my bag to arrive at baggage claim, eventually making it through to arrivals at 1558.

I’ve got to say Finnair knocked my first experience of them out of the park! Their customer service, both before the flight and during was excellent and the Cathay Pacific lounge was just fab. The Business Class seats on their Airbus A350s are overall pretty comfortable, although they lose a mark for a few slight niggles like the storage behind the shoulder and the IFE and WiFi having a few technical issues. Again, the food onboard was pretty tasty, although personally I think they tried a bit too hard, with the sauce in the carrot mash being a bit of a weird flavour. The final lost point is for punctuality, with us unluckily touching down in Helsinki six minutes late, although this was still pretty good given the ground delays at Heathrow. I was looking forward to seeing how their narrow-body product would fare up on the return trip and was already trying to mentally plan when I could try Finnair again!

Lounge              5*

Seat/Facilities     4*

Food                4*

Service             5*

Punctuality         4*

Overall Rating      22/25 (read about my rating system here!)