Airline: Finnair
Flight #: AY1332
Route: LHR-HEL
Class: Business
Seat: 12L
Date: Friday 15th May 2026
Friday 15th May 2026 saw us waking up at the Crowne Plaza at Heathrow’s Terminal 4, ready to start a trip we had been looking forward to since we first started planning it 18 months earlier. For the next 16 days we would be exploring some of the countries that make up the Nordics, with stays in Finland, Norward and Sweden all in the plan. But before we could start exploring these amazing countries, we first had to head in that direction, and what better way to start a trip of this magnitude than with a flight with Finnair in Business Class from Heathrow to Helsinki onboard one of their flagship Airbus A350s.
Having stayed at Terminal 4, it was a quick hop on the train to Terminal 3 where we arrived just before 0745. Remember, if you need to travel between terminals ‘landside’ at Heathrow, both the Elizabeth Line and Heathrow Express are free between the terminals, you just need to collect a free ticket from one of the machines. Although we had bags to check-in, our Business Class tickets allowed us to use the priority check-in desk and then fast-track security, meaning that we were through into departures in less than 15 minutes. Another quick tip is to always double check your luggage allowance on your booking! Whilst the standard for Business Class with Finnair is 2 checked bags per person, because we had bought our tickets with Avios points, we were only allowed one checked bag each. This wasn’t an issue for us, but its always worth double checking.
On my previous flight from Heathrow to Helsinki with Finnair (read about that here), Business Class passengers got access to the Cathay Pacific lounge, which in my opinion is one of the best lounges I’ve visited. Whilst both Finnair and Cathay Pacific are still alliance partners in Oneworld, clearly Finnair have changed their agreements for lounge usage as for this trip we were directed to the Qantas lounge. This was a really spacious lounge, with seating, a bar and breakfast buffet upstairs, whilst an Al a Carte restaurant was on the ground floor of the lounge. We relaxed upstairs for a bit with some drinks and pastries from the buffet, but once the extended delay to our flight was announced, we were able to head downstairs to the Al a Carte restaurant after it opened at 0930 and have a light meal there. My only criticism of the lounge was that the portions at the Al a Carte restaurant were a bit small, but I suppose given most people then eat on the aircraft as well this isn’t too much of an issue.
Our flight was scheduled to depart at 1020, however when we checked in, a 30-minute delay had already been posted and when we arrived in the lounge, I saw that our aircraft had still not departed Helsinki and so was unsurprised when the delay was extended. It turned out that drone activity in the airspace around Helsinki had closed the airport and as such our aircraft had diverted into Rovaniemi on its inbound flight from Tokyo. When the airspace had re-opened, it had continued to Helsinki and then formed AY1331, the inbound flight to Heathrow, which departed 127 minutes late. Our aircraft was OH-LWG, a nine-year-old Airbus A350-900 which had been delivered to Finnair in September 2016 and, after some delay, landed at Heathrow at 1030 and pulled onto stand five minutes later. During our delay I’d also had the opportunity to do some spotting from the lounge and was amongst the plethora of aircraft saw a couple of special liveries, specifically Air Canada’s Airbus A330 “Fly the Flag” (C-GEGC) and Emirates’ “Be Part of the Magic” Airbus A380 (A6-EOT).
Our gate was announced just a couple of minutes after the aircraft had parked and it turned out gate 7 was just a short walk from the lounge. When we arrived, #BoardingNotBoarding into the gate area had already started and whilst I find this pre-boarding frustrating, it did give me the opportunity to get some photos of our aircraft on stand. The #BoardingNotBoarding actually seemed to beat Ryanair records, as it was over half an hour later than pre-boarding actually started, with priority boarding a few minutes later and us stepping onto the aircraft at 1121, over an hour after we should have departed. Onboard, the aircraft is essentially split into five cabins, with a large Business Class cabin with 30 seats to the left of the main door and a smaller one with 13 seats to the right. Behind the small Business Class cabin is a three-row Premium Economy cabin, before the two Economy cabins taking up the remainder of the aircraft.
We were in seats 11L and 12L in the smaller of the two Business Class cabins, which were window seats on the right-hand side of the aircraft, with my seat 12L being the last row of Business Class. Rather than the traditional lie-flat seat, Finnair has gone for innovative ‘pods’ in Business Class which doesn’t recline but the leg rest raises to provide a flat surface for sleeping, whilst cushions are also provided to allow you to decide how ‘reclined’ you’d like to sit. The seat had a small storage cupboard behind your shoulder which includes the remote for the seatback TV, the headphone jack along with USB-A and USB-C charging ports, with a small reading lamp above the cupboard. There is also wireless charging available on the side table, however I found this rather ineffective and so ended up using a wired connection. Finally, the decent sized tray table folds out of the side table but also has the ability to swing away from you, allowing you to leave your seat whilst its out.
In terms of inflight entertainment (IFE), there is a large seatback TV, with a reasonable choice of shows available on the IFE, although in most cases only a few episodes of each. I stuck on a couple of episodes of Family Guy as background noise, whilst Beth decided to get into the Finnish spirit by watching Moominvalley, which had Matt Berry voicing Moomin Papa (FATHEEEER!!!). Business Class passengers also get one hour’s free WiFi access, although after that it gets a bit pricey at €14.95 for 3 hours (or in our case the full flight). For me, the key bit of IFE whilst we were still on the ground were the aircraft cameras, with one on the tail and one underneath the aircraft, allowing me to watch what was going on and compounding our delay.
Whilst the boarding complete announcement was made at 1138, cargo was still being offloaded (despite being labelled for HEL) and this continued for another 10 or so minutes. Eventually at 1150, some 90 minutes after our scheduled departure, the ground power was disconnected and tug attached, with pushback coming five minutes later. There then ended up being a bit of a Mexican stand off as an Emirates Airbus A380 was waiting to use the stand we had just pushed back from. Eventually it did a loop of the taxiways to get onto stand, however we had to wait for it to park before we could begin our taxi at 1208. With us having been parked on the south side of Terminal 3, our taxi to the active runway took us parallel to the southern runway 23L/09R, giving me great views over a lone Rwandair Airbus A330 parked on a remote stand next to an empty Terminal 4 following all the morning long-haul departures.
Continuing around the eastern side of Terminal 2B between it and the British Airways maintenance facilities, we joined the queue for departure in 4th place behind BA666 to JMK, BA1344 to GCI and Lufthansa City VL905 to FRA. However, just as we reached the front of the queue, BA748 to GVA queue-jumped and got away ahead of us, with us departing from runway 27R at 1222. After departure we continued directly west until reaching 600m and then took a right turn that took us over Slough, Beaconsfield and Watford, with us heading into the bottom of the cloud bank around 1500m. Continuing east over North London, we emerged from the clouds at around 2400m before a left turn had us heading north-east over Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk. There were a few more clouds as we continued climbing but we were clear out of the top of these at 6000m, and we crossed the UK coast 16 minutes after departure at 1238, between Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.
The onboard service started not long after departure with drink orders being taken and delivered seat by seat (mine being Finnair’s famous blueberry juice), however it took a bit longer for the food service to reach us at the back of the cabin, with it being around 1330 when we got fed. There was a bit of confusion as it seemed Beth had a historic note on her British Airways profile requesting a Gluten Free meal and that had carried through to this booking. Whilst between us we were happy to have that meal if required, thankfully someone else had chosen not to have their normal meal and so Beth was able to have that. The starer was some kind of cold cooked fish, whilst the main was a delicious game meat patty with stroganoff sauce, mashed potatoes and vegetables and accompanied with either sourdough or traditional rye bread rolls. All of this was delicious, and the meal was finished off with an amazing salted caramel pastry and some coffee.
Whilst we’d been eating, we had crossed over the breadth of Sweden, with it taking around 20 minutes to cross over the country’s southern peninsula. We crossed the Swedish east coast around 1350 to begin crossing the Baltic Sea and it wasn’t long until I could see the Estonian islands of Hiiumaa and Vormsi off to our right as we travelled along the southern coast of Finland. With the IFE saying we had 17 minutes of flight time left, the seatbelt sign came on at 1425 and we crossed the Finnish coastline near the town of Ingå. With Helsinki airport operating southeasterly approaches, we flew in over the Helsinki suburbs, giving good views of the city and its island fortress of Suomenlinna before turning to the northwest of the airport to line up for an approach.
With the undercarriage being lowered over Palojoki at 1440, we were in the final stages of the flight and touched down on Helsinki’s runway 15 a 1643L, 88 minutes late. As we taxied in, I was able to see plenty of aircraft on the ground, including lots of Finnair ATRs, Airbus A32Xs and Embraer E190s/195-E2s, and a couple of other Airbus narrowbodies of Iberia and Air France. There were also DHL and Maersk Air aircraft on the cargo ramp and a couple of Finnair Airbus A330s parked up outside the airline’s maintenance hangar. After a seven-minute taxi, we parked up on stand W42 next to OH-LTS, another Finnair Airbus A330-300 which was preparing for a flight to New York JFK, and we were off the aircraft just a few minutes later.
Helsinki airport is a really pleasant airport from my experience although one downside is that it is a long walk from the piers to the central passport control and baggage claim. From our aircraft to passport control it was about a 10-minute walk, although thankfully there wasn’t much of a queue and we were through the Finnish border five minutes later. We then had a 10 or so minute wait for our bags to arrive, and were able to make it down into the depths of the airport’s railway station to catch a train at 1733, 50 minutes after we had landed.
Once again this was an excellent flight with Finnair in Business Class onboard one of their flagship Airbus A350-900s, and whilst slightly tempered by the significant delay, this can’t be blamed on Finnair given the drone activity and airspace being closed. The Qantas lounge at Heathrow was a great place to wait for our flight, with a calm and relaxed atmosphere, although I still think I prefer the Cathay Pacific lounge, and the pod-like seats onboard the A350 are a novel but comfortable way of presenting Business Class. Onboard the crew were all excellent and helpful, especially when it came to the confusion around Beth’s meal preferences, and the food itself was delicious and well presented. If you have some Avios you want to spend, I’d certainly recommend taking a flight with Finnair on their A350s and Helsinki is also a great destination to visit.
Lounge 4*
Seat/Facilities 5*
Food 5*
Service 5*
Punctuality 0*
Overall Rating 19/25 (read about my rating system here!)
