Back to Helsinki Airport and the Finnair Lounge
Doing it for the Tier Points
- And once again, welcome to the Tier Point Enrichment Centre
- What can you do with about three hours and a bit of sleep? (Coach, Heathrow Airport and Lounge)
- Finnair AY1332 London Heathrow to Helsinki (Business Class/A350)
- Planes, Trains, Boats and Trams – Into Helsinki and slightly beyond
- Crowne Plaza Helsinki
- A Morning walk around Helsinki
- Back to Vantaa, Finnair Non-Schengen Lounge
- Finnair AY1337 Helsinki to London Heathrow (Business Class/A350)
- Heathrow wows, Euston moans, and Rugby looks pretty
- 320 Tier Points, Done
Arriving back at Helsinki Station, I headed into the station. Nothing both a P and I train had shortly left, I had a grand wait of 10 minutes for the next train back to the airport.
This is just something I like – at most times of the day a ten-minute frequency to an airport at a cheap walk-up fare – and even easier to use when the ticket is loaded on your phone
With me sitting on the train, I sat on the hump of the Flirt as it made its way around the Helsinki Loop.
Leaving Helsinki. I’m going to have to make sure that this is not the last time.
For a Sunday service – again, it was pretty busy with locals using the service chatting and just using the train for day-to-day life. The Suitcase contingent was out in force too, as they prepared to head on their trips.
Arriving at Helsinki Airport station, I headed up and out (and again, not in the mood to deal with long long escalators. The elevators are fine.
To the Terminal.
Trust me on this: USE THE LIFTS.
With me in the arrivals area, I did spot an airport supermarket – again a useful facility to see (and I’m sure a lot of people would love to see a supermarket at arrival – not just an M&S food, but a full-blown supermarket that they could get a night shopping in after they’ve got off the plane and can head home).
With a few more things sorted, it was time to head upstairs.
Pretty easy to guess which way to go.
As I headed upstairs, it was time to empty the water bottles again and head toward the security area. This time, it was a lot busier than my previous visit here. However, there was a priority lane, and I took it.
The main lanes…
And quiet in the premium lanes.
Once again, I used these wonderful CT Scanners for my hand luggage to clear security, whilst I went underneath the metal detector. With that done, I was done and dusted in under 5 minutes for the security process.
Most of you know I play Pokemon Go more often than not, so there are some things to be done in the airport (as some kind person had left a Magentic Lure alive – good to evolve certain pokemon). Once I had done that little bit of filing, it was time to head to the Non-Schengen lounge.
Schengen sie.
Of course, this means leaving Schengen. There was a short wait to be seen, but I was seen within a couple of minutes. My passport was stamped, and I was on my way past the duty-free shop.
I won’t lie- I did look at how much this rye gin costs. I’m not surprised at all – it’s a nice tipple at the price.
I was more than tempted.
With that done and a raid of the Moomin shop done, it was time to enjoy the hospitality of Finnair in their business class lounge
Wha.. what goodies in the Moomin shop? There were many.
A bag with a quote.
Ready for 2023
Perfect for the upcoming housing crisis.
Finnair Business Class Lounge
My boarding pass was scanned and once again, I was welcomed into the lounge.
Reception
I headed to the rear part of the lounge to find a seat, as well as get comfy.
The food options had changed – which is welcome to see. Rather than keeping just one set of food, Finnair was happy to have different sets of options through seasons.
I settled in with a Rye Gin and Tonic. Well, Ginair also works for the airline name.
The bar of many dreams.
For those who need bubbly or wine, there is also a help-yourself section (along with the soft drinks too… as well as a TopJuicer that uses an iPad to vend drinks. No, don’t get me started).
All Hail the TopJuicer. In fact. One day. One day I’ll write a take down of this thing.
All the tea types.
It was more than adequate space to get some minor editing done, whilst grazing on the food selection.
The environment itself can be best described as “nordic”. I know that’s not the greatest description, but it fits in the clean lines, muted tones of the furniture and so on,
This brings me to another matter – power at seat.
The plugs are common enough, with a Type F Schuko plug, along with a USB-A outlet.
This is great. Let’s not beat around the bush – a 2.1a out on the USB socket is enough to start “fast” charging your device. However, we are beginning to move from USB-A to USB-C (at long last), with the list of devices using USB-C growing by the day as a connecting socket standard.
In addition, USB-C has the wonderful Power Delivery feature that allows you to deliver high wattage down the line (providing your cable and device can handle it). We’ve seen this scale from mobile devices (such as OPPO and OnePlus being able to take advantage of this to deliver extremely quick charge times, to laptop manufacturers integrating USB-C as the only charging option (with Lenovo, Dell, and HP all going this way for laptops that need less than 130watts of power, whilst a proposal to scale USB-PD to 240w is on the table).
It raises the question – of what to design for.
USB-A is still very relevant out there, whilst USB-C has made serious grounds since it started appearing in 2015, becoming the one cable we all know and love, to allow us to live single-cable lifestyles (which reaching for the bag of dongles we all have on the side)
Whilst I love seeing airports and lounges implement USB-A with a plug, having USB-C at the plug would be a wonderful thing to see (and airlines are even starting to make this as an adopted standard – if their OEMs are divided on how to deliver power to the seat, how much power needs to be delivered to the seat and so on.
Certainly, as USB-C adoption continues, it would be nice to see faculties like airports and lounges pick up installing these when conducting refits.
With my time near the end, I gathered my stuff together to head back into the real world. Whilst I do love a lounge I do prefer to make my flight home.
Now, there is a secret exit to the lounge as well as the main exit – which dumps you in the corridor between the main non-change atrium and the route to Gate 50 and beyond.
Out of the lounge.
Still needing to test…
Heading to the gate was a familiar walk, heading down the “new” extension, but would be a short walk over to Gate 42.
Down we go.
We all know this cafe by now.
Passing by, there was a Christmas lodge. Just the sort of thing you want to see in the middle of August.
Arriving at Gate 42, Priority Boarding was in full swing.
I took my leave of Helsinki at that point, heading to the desk and having my boarding pass scanned. With that – I was clear to head aboard.
Next: Finnair AY1337 Helsinki – London Heathrow (A350)
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