Finnair – the third Airbus A350 operator (and the first A350 operator in Europe) have announced its plans for the introduction of the A350 into service.
Finnair A350 Tail – Image, Airbus via Finnair
Finnair will deploy its first Airbus A350 initially on short-haul routes – much like any airline that wishes to boost its crews knowledge and flight hours aboard an aircraft. It will then begin to deploy its A350 on longer routes.
In the first instance, the Airbus A350 will operate from Helsinki across the Finnair short-haul network from the 5th October, with the destinations such as Rovaniemi, Oulu, London Heathrow, Frankfurt-am-Main, Stockholm Arlanda, Paris Charls De Gualle, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Oslo, Barcelona, Malaga Berlin-TXL, Gothenburg, Düsseldorf, Vienna, Munich and Brussels.
A full list and dates is at http://www.finnair.com/A350
Long haul services will target the Far East with destinations such as Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore, based on the following flight pairs and dates:
- AY57/AY58 Helsinki to Shanghai commences 25th October 2015
- AY51/AY52 Helsinki to Beijing Capital commences 21st November 2015
- AY89/AY90 Helsinki to Bangkok commences 4th December 2015
- AY69/AY70 Helsinki to Hong Kong commences 1st February 2016
- AY81/AY82 Helsinki to Singapore commences 5th May 2016
The full list and dates is at http://www.finnair.com/A350
Again, changes may/will occur dependant on deliveries of A350 aircraft, and maybe substituted with A330 aircraft.
Finnair will be operating the plane in a two class configuration based on:
- 46 Business Class seats in a 1-2-1 formation
- 251 Economy Seats in a 3-3-3 configuration
Finnair Business Class cabin – Image, Finnair.
Finnair Economy Class Cabin – Image, Finnair.
The seatmap is loaded at http://www.finnair.com/go/2015.4-33/Images/fleet/new/A350_seatmap.jpg
As usual when it comes to booking inaugurals and short-haul operations – exercise caution. Equipment swaps do happen more reguallary than not, and the last thing you’ll want is to board an A321 when your inner AVGeek is crying out for an A350…
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