Finnair Flight Review

Marketed as the carrier that offers the shortest route between Europe and Asia, Finnair is ranked one of the top airlines I have fly with in terms of product, service and in-flight entertainment.

TRAVEL DISTANCE 

How is Finnair able to require a shorter time to reach Europe Continent from Asia or vice versa? That is often the first question people have in mind when they knew that all along, Geography lesson had taught them that Finland lies in the Northern Hemisphere.  The answer is simple. As the world revolves in a circle, by flying across Kazah and Russia, one can easily reach Finland for instance from Singapore to Finland within 11 hours as compare to other European Airlines that take the route across Middle East region.

Finnair has improved both their connectivity to the world and their product tremendously. In fact, when I had firstly chose to fly with Finnair for my recent trip to Eastern Europe, I had heard so much about the quality product and expected it to be top class.

AIRCRAFT TYPE 

True enough, the product was exceptional as it uses A350-900 aircraft type among one of the brand new series that Airbus had rolled out. This mean the sound from the aircraft engine is kept to the minimum, ensuring a perfect sleep for most passengers. The cabin colour changes with the outside setting and the warm choice of lighting makes the whole flight a truly enjoyable one. The windows are able to adjust to allow an optimum amount of light into the cabin. For the Helsinki to Singapore flight, it was very full. I could say operating at almost 100% flight load occupancy.

PRODUCT 

Nowadays, it is not that common for airlines to distribute good quality children amenities kit on board. However, Finnair did exactly that! A whole full set of games and coloring materials to keep children fully occupied on board. Moreover, the kids channel consist of wide selection of cartoons. If you are travelling with your kids, I am pretty sure they would be entertained and you will have a good rest on board.

Good selection of premium movies, music of multiple languages ranging from European to Chinese and pop music are available. The best part I like was the in-flight screen shows the timeline of the flight duration and what to expect on this particular flight. For example, after departing an hour from its origin, dinner will be served. It will show on the screen that before landing, breakfast will be served for the long haul flights. The breakfast service offered were awesome as well. It looks to me like how one will dine at IKEA outlet.

The seat pitch is very wide with a wide legroom for both long and short haul flights. From Prague to Helsinki, I flew on their A321 aircraft type with a 3-3 seat configuration. Usually, seats will be quite cramped up but on Finnair, one will feel pretty comfortable. I wonder if it got to do with the European body size being quite tall built, but it was definitely welcome for travellers to offer wider seat pitch.

One can choose to add-on meals for both short and long haul flights. Although the long haul flights do serve up to 2 hot meals, should one be hungry mid way, traveller can choose the option to purchase food via online their platform and/or via travel agents prior to departure.

SERVICE 

However, what was really unexpected was their quality service I had both on the short and long haul routes. As I took the flight from Prague (Czech Republic) to Helsinki and then from Helsinki direct to Singapore, both time the cabin crew services were simply exceptional! Cabin crews were courteous and their smile never leave their face.

What was even shocking is that for the long haul sector from Helsinki to Singapore, Finnair uses almost the entire Singaporean crews members. Being a Singaporean, I just got the home coming feel. It was also at the same time certainly weird that I cannot seem to locate any Finnish cabin crew despite it being an airline originated from Finland. Service crews are all professionally dressed with ties and suits for the steward. Uniforms are also neatly ironed for all. During long haul flight, the cabin crews will take turn to walk down the aisle every half an hour to make sure everything is alright and distribute water bottle if needed.

Once again, kudos for Finnair for getting much of the aspects from hardware to software of a product being spot on!

Categories: Airline Review, Europe Region