Airline: Finnair
Flight #: AY1339
Route: HEL-LHR
Class: Business
Seat: 1F
Date: Tuesday 21st May 2024
Just under 48 hours after arriving in Finland, and after two great days exploring Tampere and Helsinki as well as trying out the Finnish rail network, it was time to head back to the UK and reality. I still had one more adventure ahead of me though, another flight with Finnair in Business Class, this time onboard one of their more usual Airbus A321s. If you want to read about the earlier parts of my Finnish adventures, you can check those out here, here, here, here and here.
I’d arrived at Helsinki Vantaa airport really early for my flight as I’d intended to spend some time at the airport’s official ‘spotting terrace’ doing some plane spotting. Unfortunately, the terrace can best be described as ‘a bit rubbish’ and was just a small room with windows at the top of one of the airport office blocks containing a vending machine and nothing else. There was an outside terrace, however this was locked out of use despite the nice weather, and with all the glass the temperature in the little room was unbearable. With the my couple of hours of plane spotting lasting a couple of minutes, I headed back into the terminal to check-in.
Given I was so early, I did ask to see if I could be moved to the earlier A350 flight to Heathrow, however the staff at the airport can’t do this and it has to be done via phone which I felt was too much hassle for limited benefit. Deciding to check-in anyway, the process was pretty swift which is more than can be said for the priority security queue. Unfortunately despite the new scanners that look like jet engines and are supposed to speed up the process, there were only two lanes open and so the queue ended up moving quite slowly. Thankfully having checked in around five hours before my flight, I wasn’t exactly in a rush.
As with my flight from Heathrow, my Business Class ticket provided access to a lounge and with Helsinki being Finnair’s hub, I was able to visit the airline’s own lounge located near gate 52. This lounge was absolutely huge, as would be expected for a hub airport, with pretty much every seating option imaginable and various amenities including showers! I’ve never had a shower at an airport before, but with some spare clothes in my bag, I decided to freshen up before the flight and I’ve got to say, it’s a game changer!
I also decided to check out the limited but decent food choice available within the lounge and sticking with the Finnish fish theme, decided to have some Coconut Fish Curry with rice. I was also able to tick off another of the four traditional foods we’d been told about on the walking tour that morning, this one being Ruisleipä, or rye bread for those that don’t speak Finnish. Spending a few hours in the lounge relaxing, refreshing and writing, I decided to head towards the gates about 90 minutes before my flight to enjoy the one thing the lounge was lacking, a view out of a window.
My early arrival at the gate allowed me to get my plane spotting fix as well as allowing me to see the arrival of my aircraft on a flight from Stockholm. OH-LZN, a seven year old Airbus A321-200 would be operating my flight to Heathrow, with Finnair having 31 of the Airbus A320 family making up just over a third of their total fleet. OH-LZN has been with Finnair throughout its operating life, although did enjoy a spell operating British Airways flights in 2022 when Finnair supported its OneWorld partner by operating some flights on its behalf from Heathrow.
With Finnair being a full service airline, I was surprised when boarding commenced less than 30 minutes after OH-LZN arrived on stand, however soon discovered this was in fact the dreaded #BoardingNotBoarding. Actual boarding of the aircraft stated at 1919 and I was quickly able to find seat 1F, my flight for the two and half hour flight to London. As with other European airlines, Finnair’s fleet of Airbus A319/320/321s are fitted with ‘euro business’ which is essentially normal economy seating with the middle seat kept free. This allows the airline to be flexible with how many rows of Business Class are available, keeping the rest as Economy if premium seating is not in demand.
For this flight to Heathrow, there were 11 or 12 rows of Business Class, with the UK capital clearly having high demand for the more expensive seats, so I was a bit surprised to have been able to get an Avios seat but wasn’t complaining. Boarding was completed at 1940 and just five minutes later we were pushing back for the short taxi to the runway. Take-off was at 1952, just seven minutes after we pushed back, and Helsinki’s runway 22L saw us heading south-west, before a pretty immediate turn to the right took us west towards the coast of the Finnish peninsula south of Turku.
This Airbus A321 had Wi-Fi fitted and Business Class passengers were able to claim 30 minutes free of the ‘Stream’ package which was an added bonus. I used the 30 minutes but didn’t use it after this as access would have been €6.95 for an hour or €11.95 for the full flight, however even after the 30 minutes I was able to enjoy some of the freebies on the landing page including an inflight map, games and various reading material. With cloud cover for the majority of the flight, I spent most of the time in the air reading however, did stop to enjoy the inflight meal.
Dinner onboard this evening flight between the Finnish and UK capitals started with cold cuts of salmon with salad, with a single but giant meatball with potatoes and creamed spinach for the main course. Desert was the final of the four traditional Finnish dishes, Korvapuustit, a cinnamon roll which in this instance was absolutely huge! So much so I wasn’t even upset when a bit was lost to the aircraft floor after I failed in the process of eating it…
The flight took us over the southern part of Sweden on a line just south of Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the northern part of the Danish mainland, north of Aarhus and Esbjerg. After crossing the North Sea, we thankfully avoided being held in any of Heathrow’s ‘stacks’ and were soon lining up for a westerly approach to the UK’s busiest airport. This brought us in over the City of London as well as some of the capital’s major tourist attractions such as the London Eye and Houses of Parliament. If you’re ever flying into Heathrow, make sure to get a seat on the righthand side of the plane to get a chance to see these views.
Touching down on runway 27L at 2027, we were able to leave the runway at one of the intermediate taxiways and have a short taxi to stand 309, arriving just 2 minutes later. This is one of the stands I’d been able to see from the Cathay Pacific lounge before my flight out to Helsinki and it felt strange to be back having done so much in such a short amount of time. Unfortunately, despite the aircraft door opening at 2032, our arrival into the UK was not a smooth process as we were held outside passport control owing to excessive queues. I made it landside at 2049 and after some weaving and speed walking, made it onto the 2055 Elizabeth Line service towards the city by the skin of my teeth.
As with the flight out to Helsinki, Finnair once again provided an excellent experience. The lounge in Helsinki is a great place to wait for a flight, only let down by the lack of apron or runway views and all of the staff I interacted with were great! With this flight being on an A321, the ‘Euro Business’ seat lets the experience down at bit, although having the extra space of the empty middle seat is always appreciated. Finally, the food was just excellent, I can’t really put into words how good it was considering it was on a plane! All in all, Finnair knocked it out of the park with both of my flights, and I’ m definitely hoping to return to Finland with them soon.
Lounge 4*
Seat/Facilities 3*
Food 5*
Service 5*
Punctuality 5*
Overall Rating 22/25 (read about my rating system here!)
Flights & Times 