TRIP REPORT: Finnair AY142 Bangkok Suvarnabhumi to Helsinki (BUSINESS CLASS) – Taking the Long Way to Singapore

Finnair AY142 Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport to Helsinki Vantaa Airport (Business Class)
Taking the long way (and back) to Singapore

It’s time to go west and start tracking towards the Nordics and Europe. And I’m doing this in style, with a Finnair Airbus A350 with Collins Aerospace Airlounge. But can the soft product hold up against a strong hard product?

In this adventure

• I needed a break
• 02:40 on the coach? Nothing changes, with Heathrow Terminal 5 and British Airways South Lounge
• BA776 London Heathrow to Stockholm Arlanda (Club Europe)
• An afternoon in Stockholm featuring ABBA The Museum 
• Off to Stockholm Bromma, AY840 Stockholm Bromma to Helsinki Vantaa with NoRRA (Economy Class)
• A Rapid Helsinki Transit and The Finnair Lounge
• AY099 Helsinki Vantaa to Hong Kong International with Finnair (Business Class)
• Transiting Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific’s The Pier Lounge
• CX715 (AY5855) Hong Kong International to Singapore Changi Terminal 4 with Cathay Pacific (Business Class)
• Into Singapore, IBIS Budget Crystal
• The Mercure Hotel, Bugis
• Boating around the Singapore River
• Exploring Hawker Markets and random fooding around Singapore
• The Best Camera is the One You Have With You – Exploring The Gardens by the Bay
• Up to the Marina Bay Sands Skypark…
• …and the fallout of a stolen and returned iPhone
• Back to Changi Airport the Pokemon Centre at the Jewel and Terminal 4
• 3K513 (AY6379) Singapore Changi to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (Jetstar Asia Economy Class)
• One night in Bangkok and the Avagard Capsule Hotel, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
• An early morning at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi and The Miracle Lounge, D Pier
• AY142 Bangkok Suvarnabhumi to Helsinki Vantaa with Finnair in Business Class
• Out of Vantaa Airport and into Helsinki… and a little beyond
• Holiday Inn, Helsinki Airport
• Early morning at Helsinki Vantaa Airport and The Finnair Schengen Lounge
• AY841 Helsinki Vantaa to Stockholm Bromma with NoRRA (Economy Class)
• The slow return to Arlanda Airport (with a military band)
• D84459 Stockholm Arlanda to London Gatwick with Norweigan Air Shuttle
• How to get home… coach or train?
• Sometimes, Simple Isn’t Needed… Or Wanted

I headed down the jetway and to the welcoming comfort of a Finnair Airbus A350-900 and turned left into the main business class cabin.

Unsurprisingly, the aircraft was outfitted with the Collins Aerospace AirLounge seat at the front of the aircraft.

After the outbound flight, I was looking forward to being in a little cocoon for the flight back to Europe.

At the foot of the seat was the bedding for the flight (mattress and blanket)

Whilst on the side was the menu and amenity kit

Seat controls

The big difference with the forward business class cabin (compared to the rear one) is that the middle overhead bins have been deleted from this part of the aircraft – giving it a wide and spacious feel – this means there is slightly more of a scramble for overhead bin space (although this being business class, no one was hunting for a bin)

 

As for the overhead system, it’s pretty much a standard A350 overhead passenger service unit – but like a lot of European airlines, Finnair chose not to have air distributors installed in its business class cabin. Considering where we were in the world, that’s a false economy…

In the meantime, the pre-departure drinks service commenced – with the only acceptable pre-departure drink I can think of.

With the aircraft buttoned up and secure, the aircraft was readied for its 11-hour and 30-minute flight back to its home base.

There are various power outlets at the seat, with USB-A and USB-C outlets at the console where your headphones plug in, buried in the side of the seat.

There’s also a wireless charging mat here. Let me go off on one here, please. Wireless Charging – especially on an aircraft – is dumb.

Why? Firstly the wireless coil patch needs to be massive to be any good. This can result in a lot of “hunting for the charging coil”. In addition, modern phones have all suffered from increasingly larger camera bumps and bars, increasing the distance between the receiving and sending charging coil – and you guessed it – reducing the effectiveness of a charge.

Whilst I appreciate that Collins Aerospace put two non-slip bars to hold your phone, I dread to think what this would be like with turbulence.

Wireless charging at home or the office makes a lot more sense. On an aircraft? Unless you’re maxing out all the other sockets, bring a wire.

It’ll be faster.

The safety video played – and it’s good to see a warning about taking your luggage with you in an emergency.

With that complete, the aircraft taxied out of Bangkok Suvarnabhumi to find the appropriate runway it needed for take off.

Of course, the humidity of Bangkok struck hard, turning a clear window into a foggy mess.

Thus, you get no takeoff video.

 

 

Well, how about a short, 10 seconds of climb? That’ll do? Good.

Whilst you don’t get a video, you get something more impressive – at least to me – a good aerial view of Bangkok as we climbed out and departed Thailand.

I love to see cities from above, spotting sights and spotting places from afar. It’s one of the nicer parts of departing or arriving at a city, picking out spots and landmarks from the sky.

As I was more than awake, I fired up the iPhone to connect to the Nordic Sky Inflight System. For Finnair Business passengers, they allow 1 hour of connectivity free of charge. It’s a matter of connecting to the Nordic Sky Portal, selecting the package and entering the data for a free hour of connectivity.

 

Running the usual tests, Bandwith speeds varied – but its Panasonic’s Ku connectivity is passable – depending on where the aircraft is overflying and if you’re in a decent enough beam spot.

I was happy for anything over 10Mbps, so these results seem to be running where I expected.

Perfectly passable – I just wasn’t in the mood to pay for connectivity at this point of the trip. With everything that had been going on the past few days, I was rapidly done with people. In some ways, I was happy I was in business class just for some of the white noise to keep me in that world.

With my connecitiy good to go, next was IFE. I started with Panasonic ARC Maps to keep me entertained on the way out of Thailand.

Breakfast service started with a towel.

The Cathay hot towels were a lot nicer.

With a smoothie to get things going.

 

As in previous flights, the flight attendants delivered the breakfast service on a single tray.

Well, we get some interesting marks here. The presentation is excellent – with the fruit slices being cut attractively. We got negative points about the lack of choice (as the only options were the spinach and tomato quiche, cold cuts, croissants, and bread).

The cold cuts were passable and cold. They go well with the roll to make a cheat sandwich for those who need a sandwich for breakfast.

As for the Quiche, it was standard. Nothing to pop the eyes out as special. It’s enough to fill a little hole.

The fruit was wonderful and fresh – a highlight of the meal. As for the yoghurt… I’m on record what I think of it (that, and I didn’t bring any Lactaid).

Honestly, for a Business Class product,  I would expect more choices.

With the tray table cleared, people were pulling down blinds for a sleep across India, the Middle East, Turkey and up through Europe. A little disappointing – there’s sometimes nothing like having a blind up and watching the world go by. I guess we had the sleeper passengers aboard the aircraft.

In the end, I put The Big Bang Theory on and drifted off myself.

That worked for a few hours, as I tried to sleep on the strain of the previous two days. At least the Collins Aerospace know how to design a seat for sleep. Thats important with premium products like this as sleep will be a bg use case for people. Although the engineer gets a tut for putting the mains power outlet on the floor

Waking up, the crew noticed I was starting and offered a mid-flight snack.

A half sandwich. Hmm. Which airline does that remind me of?

I made my way through that, with the crew offering drinks to help.

No further questions will be taken. 

In terms of a toilet, there’s a pair towards the front of the cabin – and yes, the toilet has a window in it.

I dived back into the IFE again and noticed they had “Star Trek: Beyond” loaded on. Whilst I appreciate what the Kelvinverse did to keep Star Trek alive (and rebooted), it always seemed to miss some of the points of Star Trek, going for action and flares (and retelling stories in a different way).

Butterfly effect Enterprise? More like a Naradra effect. Alternative Realities are strange things.  

Although, credit to them for acknowledging the passing of Leonard Nimoy, building into the story of the film 

Besides, we’ve got so many tellings of the Khan Noonian Singh story at the moment (thanks to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for adding that to Cannon, along with the Beta Cannon), this is one universe I’m happy to see put on ice for a bit – with the Prime Universe taking good steps, even if Lower Decks is entering its final season.

A shame that Paramount and its new owners haven’t got the balls to launch Star Trek: Legacy (with the massive setup at the end of Picard), and yet cancel popular shows such as Lower Decks (which deserved longer treks/longer seasons, rather than the 10 episodes a season it got), or the complete mismanagement of Star Trek Prodigy.

With around 2 and a half hours on the clock, the lighting started to come up in the cabin.

Meanwhile, the world was looking good underneath us.

With the lights coming up, others were cracking open their windows to let in some natural light into the cabin.

This signalled that the crew were ready to commence their pre-arrival service. This was a little more elaborate than the breakfast service. However, it seems that Finnair loves to use trays in business class.

At least the cola and nuts didn’t need a tray. 

So on the tray, we have Beef ShortRibs in a Terakyi sauce with noodles. This is accompanied by two side dishes – A Sweet chilli prawn salad and a chicken and basil amuse bouche.

Finnair can give BA a run for prawn counting. 

Chicken and Mozzarella with a basil sauce and tomato

This is a nicely put-together tray, with a good mixture of flavours, with the beef terakiyi adding texture. Not bad at all.

Desert followed – and this was done with the tray removed – finally a multi-clear down service. It’s only taken four services to start to move away from trays. This was served with coffee.

Almond and Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Sauce – some deliciously dark cocoa notes, offset by the sweetness of the strawberry. A much better performance for a meal here.

In the meantime, I had put my Anker power bank on charge – thankfully, I have my own USB-C charger (one I picked up in Hamburg, that’s turned into my main travel charger), with it plugged into a USB cable and a GaN Powerbank. A shame it’s a 10,000 mha power bank – but that’s me being cheap.

But this shows how stupid the placement of the power socket is.

Still not a fan of this.

Whilst the service had mostly been wrapped up, I was still a little thirsty. I went to the galley and grabbed a bottle of water. As well as that, I was offered more snacks. And I got some crisps… in a box.

Eh?

Opening the box up, we’ve got waste. A bag in a box. Good for storage, considering the sustainability credentials of Finnair – a bit of a disaster, where a bag would do the job.

Made it Britain. I should have guessed really.

At this point, the crew was nearing the end of the service, and the welcome videos started to play.

At this point, the crew went around to tidy up the aircraft, bringing seats to the upright position. I did so… and here’s my concern about the seat. The fabric covers appear to be ageing, fast.

That’s a lot of bobbling of the fabric – something to keep an eye on. 

At least Doctor Sheldon Cooper kept me company.

With everything secured, it was time to put on the seat belt, with the shoulder strap on, as the aircraft descended to its home base of Helsinki Airport.

Cabin Ready for landing

 

City life

Heading through the cloud layer

With ease, the Airbus A350 continued its descent down towards its home base of Helsinki Vantaa Airport.

With a good thump, the Airbus A350 made its landing at its home of Helsinki Vantaa Airport.

Pulling off the runway, we were being directed to a gate so we could be processed for arrival.

Oneworld Finnair A450

More of the long-haul A350 fleet

Heading to Gate 49… the far end of Helsinki

Pegasus and a Chinese airline parked

With the A350-900 parked at the far end of the Non-Schengen wing of Helsinki Airport, it was time to leave this aircraft and enter the Nordics… once the jetbridge docked.

Ahhh. A bridge to the world.

Thank you Airlounge

Empty overhead bin

Everyone out.

I thanked the crew and headed off into one of the biggest immigration hall messes I’ve yet to encounter.

Overall:

The hardware that Finnair selected was spot on – with the AirLounge seat being a standard to beat (and I’d love to see more airlines adopt it). It allows one to sit as comfortably as they like and enjoy the environment it has, with a superb amount of privacy – and no, I don’t miss the door on this seat at all.

Combined with the Panasonic internet connectivity, it’s a good experience.

Where it falls down is the lack of effort in the soft product – and it shows here. Plastic Wrap sandwiches are fine, as are the boxed crisps in a foil bag (easy to store I guess). The lack of choice of foods for breakfast, and a comparatively thin selection for arrival service isn’t forgivable – especially with the amounts of money they ask for in business class.

And where’s the first place airlines love to make savings in any cabin? Correct – in the food and beverage department.

Whilst Finnair claims environmental credentials by reducing the number of items loaded, there is a far easier way to do this – preordering meals. This allows for a wider choice of meals, and delivering exactly what is needed to the aircraft, without as much waste.

For such a great hard product, there is a long way to go on the soft.

Next:

Transiting Helsinki: Easy. Leaving Helsinki as a separated arrival – Hard.

Plus a Helsinki walk… and a ferry.

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