In summer 2008, HEL-BOS flights will be nonstop and only twice a week. However, they will still be operated with a 757. How AY manages to sell tickets for nearly €1000 on these flights remains a mystery for me... :)

I do understand that J class is thin on BOS and YYZ, but why not configure one of the older MD-11s as all-economy and fly nonstops to Phuket and South America in the winter and BOS/YYZ in the summer? Even if there were as little legroom as in the 757, at least the flying times to IC leisure destinations would be a lot shorter.

I do understand that J class is thin on BOSHmmm, I seem to remember that a certain Finnish mobile phone (or multimedia computer...) company has offices near BOS. Also there are lots of hi-tech companies there, though for them Finland is unlikely to be a major destination.

Anyway with only 2 flights per week you won't attract many business travellers.

I do hope AY is not overlooking the Russian market in this context. There might be enough J pax in St.Pete alone to fill the "new" J class in an MD 11 and a good portion of the Y cabin as well.

I do understand that J class is thin on BOS and YYZ, but why not configure one of the older MD-11s as all-economy and fly nonstops to Phuket and South America in the winter and BOS/YYZ in the summer?

This is because all MD-11 capacity is reserved on Asian and JFK routes.

One must be totally grazy to fly HEL-BOS with AY 752 for business purposes... those 752s are a total punishment even for leisure flights, period.

In summer 2008, HEL-BOS flights will be nonstop and only twice a week. However, they will still be operated with a 757. How AY manages to sell tickets for nearly €1000 on these flights remains a mystery for me... :)

I guess that this means that ARN no longer will have a nonstop flight ARN-BOS during the summer... I have no idea have many Swedish passengers there were on the AY flight ARN-BOS, but when AY moved the stop in STO from Skavsta airport (more than 100 km south of Stockholm) to ARN, the numbers of passengers travelling to/from Stockholm should have increased. Maybe AY doesn't have any problems to fill up the flight with passengers from HEL.

The HEL-MIA flights were operated with an MD-11, sold 100% Y and J seats reserved to paid upgrades and elite status holders. Service was normal Y, not leisure Y.

One idea could be that AY leaves few M11s for charter/leisure in order to be able to fly nonstop to some of the most packed destinations but I think that's not realistic, operating/service etc. costs would be too high for such a small fleet. Also, M11's best feature is the freight capacity, which has very little use when carrying 400+ package tourists to long haul "Canary Islands", Thailand...

I understood they cannot do that; all on-going leases will end and the Finnair-owned fleet has been sold already. Due to the high demand for MD11s as freighters, continuing the leases is out of question (either not possible or too expensive).