More Finnair business class!

I took a long weekend trip last week (2/2/20) to Norway and Finland to join Krister, who was working in Oslo, for some sightseeing and some skiing (and because I’d never been to Norway).  I had arrived in Norway Friday night on an SAS youth fare (I only get to take advantage of them for another 4 months!). 

After our weekend in Oslo, we took Flytoget (the airplane train) from the National Theatre to Oslo Gardermoen Airport for our 17:15 flight to Helsinki, which got us there smoothly in about a half hour.  (AY916) Krister had bought a return economy ticket from Helsinki to Oslo (which I again upgraded to Business class for 7,500 Finnair points), and I used 16,000 Finnair points to get myself a free Business class ticket to Helsinki.  Considering a one-way economy ticket goes for €110 and business class ticket on this route would go for €430 (not that I’d ever pay that…), this is a pretty good use of Finnair points.

After checking in at the Finnair priority desk (and for some reason getting stares for being in the shorter queue), we quickly and efficiently cleared security and then headed to the international section of Oslo airport.  Norway is part of Schengen, so there are no passport checks between Oslo and Helsinki, but since Norway is not part of the European Union and lies outside the customs union, we had to exit Norway’s customs area (through some glass one-way doors in the middle of the terminal).  We then made our way to the airport-operated OSL-Lounge.  Our business class tickets got us access to the club (as would Oneworld Sapphire and Emerald cards).  Access can also be bought to the main lounge area for 350NOK (£30/€35/$38).  Our Finnair business class tickets specifically also got us access to the premium section, but the person at the entrance didn’t mention this, and no one explicitly checked as we walked into it…

The food in the standard part was primarily snacks – a selection of cheeses, salads, and chips and salsa.  In the premium part, the snacks were supplemented by a platter of smoked salmon (it’s Norway) and waffles and toppings.  The drinks were all self-serve, but all the highlights- wine, champagne, beer, smoothies, and spirits and mixers- were there.  The couches in the lounge were especially comfortable; I love a good couch in an airport.

At 16:30, we walked down to the gate as boarding was about to begin.  The gate area was relatively crowded with people and, as is often the case in the Nordic countries, the boarding was somewhat disordered, being controlled by both gates and a gate agent, so Krister and I just filed into the lines and follow the disorder.  The jet bridges are basically giant windows, and so walking to the plane is great fun.

We had seats 1D and F, so once on the plane, we were immediately in our seats (and I got more stares while taking pictures of the plane).  The bulkhead seats had extra legroom, which meant this business class seat definitely felt more premium than the other ones in the cabin, which have the same legroom as the economy seats.

This is Europe, so Business class seats are identical to Economy seats, but since this aircraft has a 3-3 configuration, the middle seat is blocked out (unlike on Finnair’s E190s).  In the seat was again a small green Marimekko pillow and blanket in case one of us got cold during our short flight.  I like Finnair’s Nordic-style (read: white and gray) cabin design by itself, but the splash of color from the green pillows really brings it out.

One of the drawbacks of the bulkhead seat (aside from no under-seat storage) is that the literature pockets are fairly small, so my water bottle didn’t fit in them.  I put the water bottle in the open seat beside me, under the seatbelt for takeoff. 

                When doing the safety demonstration, the (extremely friendly) flight attendant noticed the water bottle and said “that’s the right idea and is good, but I think it might slide out”, so she put the pillow and blanket around the bottle to give the seatbelt more to grab onto.

The taxiing out was efficient, and we were quickly in the air.  Since this was a short flight, dinner was served immediately after take-off.  I had ordered a special seafood meal, which, according to a little sticker on it, had been brought with the plane from Helsinki specifically for me for the return flight.  Krister had the standard meal, which was chicken-based.  Both meals were great for such a short flight.  While I’ll never say no to hummus, it wasn’t my favorite hummus.  I found it interesting that the seafood meal came with a different cake than the meat meal, but I prefer pear cake to raspberry cake and Krister prefers raspberry cake, so it worked out nicely.

For this short flight, business class passengers were given a free 30 minutes of WiFi, which worked from just after take off to just before landing, so my 30 minute session covered about 75% of the time the WiFi was available. I also like that Finnair uses drop-down screen to provide a rotating flight map and flight statistics.

So how did Finnair do?  For this 90-minute flight, we got (premium) lounge access (5/5 for me because of the couches; for Krister because of the salmon), a three-course meal (4/5), excellent and fun service (5/5), and a blocked middle seat at the bulkhead (4/5), and free WiFi and flight map for most of the flight (4/5).  Overall, this short Finnair flight gets a 22/25 from us.