Well, it’s been a long lockdown, but Europe is slowly starting to reopen and allow more travel. For this trip, Krister and I are in Finland specifically to visit his parents (15 July – 26 July). This is the first time we will have seen them since we got engaged, and Finland is now allowing in non-married partners of Finns.
Aside from needing to go see Krister’s family, I was interested to see how different travel would be. I’d read about airports and train stations being mostly empty during the lockdown, but since travel has picked back up slightly, I knew the airports wouldn’t quite be completely deserted. At this point last summer, Finnair offered seven daily flights between London and Helsinki, two of which on wide-body aircraft. In January, Finnair was planning to operate eight daily flights, two of which on wide-body aircraft, this summer. At the height of lockdown, only two flights a day on A319s were being operated. With everything relaxing a bit, the two flights are now on A321s, which are a bit bigger. The space likely isn’t needed for passengers as much as it might be needed for cargo.
To make the entry into Finland easier, I took the train to London the night before to fly directly to Helsinki with him, which was a bit strange in itself. Liverpool station was empty, there were only 8 people in my entire carriage, and Euston had maybe two dozen people in it. The next morning, Krister and I took an Uber to the airport, and arrived about two hours before our flight in case there were any problems, but check-in was easy, since we were travelling together. Security was similarly empty. We actually got randomly selected to try out a new security machine that didn’t require taking out any of the liquids or the laptops—I’ve seen a similar machine in Switzerland, and although it took longer for them to look at each bag, a lot of time was saved because the unpacking/repacking of the bag was avoided. Hopefully they’ll get more! Because of the limited flights, Finnair flights leave from Terminal 2 (usually the Star Alliance terminal) at Heathrow right now. Terminals 3 (Oneworld) and 4 (SkyTeam) are shut down, and Terminal 5 is used for British Airways (and now American Airlines).
The only restaurant that was open was the Leon, which Krister visited for some lunch before the flight. However, one could buy a Rolex watch, if one wanted, which was interesting. Finnair doesn’t have a lounge contract with any lounges in Terminal 2, and I doubt any were open anyway.
Around 10 minutes ahead of time (9:40), the flight began boarding. Finnair has (temporarily) changed to strictly boarding from back to front. While this is one of the slowest methods of boarding (even slower than random), it has the advantage of limited the amount of movement past someone who already has their seat. Krister (9C) and I (6C) were in group 4, since we were near the front of the plane. I bought myself a business class ticket for better social distancing, as I had no idea how full the flight would be, and for a checked bag (and for the 80 tier points on BA!). Krister opted for an economy ticket. The Finnair website was showing upgrade availability when we went to check in, but for whatever reason, it said I wasn’t able to upgrade Krister using Finnair points less than 24 hours before the flight. Since I’ve switched to collecting Oneworld points on British Airways, I have a lot of excess Finnair points. Oh well; we’ll use them another time.
I was originally booked into seat 6C on the plane, but there was only one person in the first three rows (3A). I politely asked the flight attendant if I could move to 2F for better distancing, and they were happy to accommodate the move, which was great! All passengers are given a tiny cleaning kit, with a cleaning wipe for the seat and two packets of sanitizing gel from Kyrö distillery, which make a type of gin Krister and I have bought previously, haha. I’d read that distilleries and breweries had expanded into hand sanitizer, but this was the first time I’d seen/used one in person, so that was a lot of fun in itself.
For the safety of the flight attendants in the galley, the front lavatory was closed for the duration of the flight. That makes perfect sense to me, but it meant if anyone in business class needed to go to the lavatory, they needed to walk the entire length of the plane, which was non-ideal. But the flight was only 2.5 hours total (we landed 20 minutes early!), so it wasn’t a problem.
Like most flights in Europe, there were no TV screens, but Finnair offers WiFi on most of its European fleet. Business class customers (and status members) get 30 minutes of free standard WiFi. The WiFi is sufficient for sending messages and surfing the internet. Higher speeds of WiFi can also be purchased for around €12 – 17 (I forgot to write down the exact numbers).
About 15 minutes after takeoff, the lunch service began. I always order a special meal on Finnair because they let me select a seafood meal on flights within Europe. They also offer various types of vegetarian/vegan dishes. Specifically, I just need a meal that isn’t beef. One thing that was interesting was that the meal had the same main course as my flight from Oslo in February. The only difference was that the meal was served with the plastic coverings still on it. That makes sense because of course the meal is loaded onto the plane like that (and the covers being on really doesn’t distract from the presentation for me, especially now).
The two fish dishes were flavorful and filling. I enjoyed the fish dish again, since I hadn’t had it in five months. I also appreciate the cold smoked salmon appetizer; it was very refreshing. I’m not generally a fan of cakes on planes (they’re often a bit dry); this one was not memorably good or bad.
The extent of the service on the flight was the meal and then an offer of tea/coffee afterwards. In normal times, there has been a second beverage service, but the second service wasn’t really missed, since we began landing about an hour after I finished the meal.
Upon arrival into Finland, Krister and I cleared border control without too much hassle. That being said, I should in the future note which page has my most recent Schengen stamp on it because it gave the border guard a headache trying to find it.
In summary, this nominally 3-hour flight across the EEA during the pandemic was largely hassle-free and felt safe. There was no lounge access in terminal 2, but that’s because they were all closed, so no penalty here. The food was good (4/5), the service was great under the circumstances (5/5), and the huge amount of space was great, especially for European business class (5/5). The free WiFi for 30 minutes (out of the 120 possible minutes of it) worked well, but since that’s the only thing on offer, it gets a 3/5. Overall, the flight gets an 17/20, taking into account the pandemic’s effects. Not too bad!
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