Finnair Plus - Flight cancelled, excellent communication

After >400 legs with AY I experienced today first flight cancellation with them in GOT. Bummer, but must give thumbs up to AY staff for excellent communication:

The flight was scheduled to depart to HEL at 17:05 and at 16:45 boarding agent announced the plane was undergoing a techical inspection. More information would be given at 17:15. At 17:20 captain of the plane appeared in the boarding desk, took the microphone and explained the plane was struck by a lightning and needs to undergo a full inspection and due to this, flight was cancelled. He was very apologetic and explained the ground personnell are working to reroute us asap. Boarding staff announced right away we all were booked to an extra plane departing at 20:30 and started giving out coupons. At 17:30 I got same info via sms from AY ground staff.

AY+ program is cr*p nowadays, but I must praise the attentive staff.

nim. pelikaani turbiiniin

nim. pelikaani turbiiniin

Unfortunately only in Finnish... Lentäjä Pulassa (eng. Pilot in trouble)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ20sfCZSeA

Happy hear you had a positive experience. I have had many cancellations / delays / reroutings by Finnair and have always found them really accomodating, both at outstations and definitely also in Helsinki.

We live in Helsinki but once when our midnight BKK/SIN departure was delayed until early am they even let us airside to eat in the lounge before going to the airport hotel for a short sleep..that was a really nice gesture..well they had prepared the buffet anyway..they actually had the same dinner?! stuff back on offer at 4am as they even opened the lounge just for the delayed BKK/SIN dep. This was couple of years ago and if something like this happened again today I wouldn't expect this level of service, unfortunately..

Can only agree with your comments. Back in January we had already boarded our A343 to HKG and I had fallen asleep while waiting for deicing. Woke up around 2 hours later as everyone got up to leave the aircraft. Seems we never left the gate as they tried to fix a problem.

Clear instructions were given to all passengers and within 20 minutes of leaving the air craft, I was sitting in a taxi going to my hotel. All paid for by AY. At the hotel reception no requirement to register but my name was simply crossed off a list and I was off to my room. I was in bed about 45 minutes after leaving the plane.

At 8:30am that morning a message popped up on the TV in the room that the flight was scheduled to depart HEL at 12pm and that all passengers were asked to be at the boarding gate at 11:30 am. Packed up and had a great time using the AY Spa before leaving for HKG at 12 pm?

Passengers in economy may have had a bit longer trip to their hotel as they were not transported by taxi but by bus.

Was extremely pleased how the situation was handled and have just booked my next business trip to Germany in September on AY.

Cheers from Brisbane,

pswissoz

Its my 16th flight from Delhi in a year to HEL, it happened 10 days back,
When I reached Delhi airport the check in counter staff told me that the flight is delayed by 4 hours that means 2.5 hours prior to flight time meaning i have to roam around in the airport I asked the staff in the check in counter you should inform us earlier so that I would not check out my room for that the answer was whether you had your phone number enrolled....... I said please look into my booking and I am AY+ member then they said ohh we tried your number but it was switched off and some more stories which is not true, then they informed us about the break fast arrangement in a lounge in the airport after security, we arrived there and asked one of the male staff regarding that he answered with unhappy face and with great unwelcome, thinking that its our day we waited to board the flight even then the flight was delayed 40 minutes more then what they announced.....................reached HEL in the late evening and I had my connection flight missed and there was no more flights for my destination on that day when I asked the ground staff in HEL they are not even ready to answer and no feeling of regrets to all the passengers answering very strictly and their attitude is like they are standing there to do some favour to all the passengers with free of charge! finally after 45 minutes they said the same following words get out from here and ask the staff in ground floor I was shocked to hear that, when i came to collect my luggage there was no trolley in the Vantaa collection area for more than 1.5 hours its true there was no body from airport or Ay to answer what a beautiful and efficient airport, I had seen at least more than 40 airports for the first time i saw a airport hall filled with passenger with no staff then they arranged some taxi to my destination after 1 hour at least the taxi was good and reached home exhausted after all shops closed in the night and slept hungry. Thanks to generous AY staffs in Delhi and arrogant staff in HEL.

If you want someone to actually read and understand your rant, it might help to use some punctuation.

When travelling on AY longhaul from outstations, I make a habit of checking at www.helsinki-vantaa.fi that the flight has actually left and what the departure time from HEL was.

Moreover, in NYC, I have reveiced text messages a couple of times. They say something like "Your flight will now depart at 18.45. Check-in closes 40 min prior to departure."

(BTW, there's a 24/7 Alepa grocery store at HEL.)

Thanks to generous AY staffs in Delhi and arrogant staff in HEL.

AY staff (including AY-contracted staff) in DEL isn't much better -- something that becomes apparent quite often when bags checked in at an AY outstation fail to make it onto the baggage belt at DEL for completed AY21 flights.

... add in the DEL ridiculousness of having to fill in a Indian customs form for a lost bag -- if you can find AY staff capable of completing an irregular baggage handling report before the connecting flight check-in closes :rolleyes: -- and I don't have any praise for AY's staff at DEL. They are about as "generous" as Aeroflot (including SU-contracted) staff at DEL, which isn't any sort of praise whatsoever.

I really don't know why you would chose to fly AY in and out of DEL so much. In economy class, it has some of the worst seats and service is ordinary at best; in business class it is nothing special. And unless your flight is to/from HEL, there may well be faster options with other carriers that have better seats and service into and out of DEL.

At least you can claim 600 Euros, not so bad. Look on the bright side of such events!

At least you can claim 600 Euros, not so bad. Look on the bright side of such events!

There is a chasm between "claim" and "collect".