Trip Reports - 1 euro's worth HEL-DUS AB

I simply couldn't resist when I came across Air Berlin's 1 euro flight offers from Helsinki to Dusseldorf and back :D
With taxes added, it came to around 50 euros so I booked to take my mom for a little spin in Germany.
This was my first LCC experience in Europe and after reading very favorable comments about Air Berlin, I was very curious to see how it would turn out.

I joined their FF club to get a joining bonus and also noted they were offering bonus miles on the very route we're flying ^

At check-in at HEL they had 3 counters with only 2 people in queue, which was a huge relief as the queue for SAS next door was about a mile long :p
Check-in was very friendly and took all of 3 minutes as he typed our bonus numbers into the booking. We got assigned seats so no mad rush to the gate.
We now had heaps of time so had a leisurely coffee and then went through security to the gate area.

To my surprise, they started boarding at exactly the announced time and in very orderly fashion we marched to the dowstairs gate area to wait for the bus. It took quite a while for the bus to arrive but when it did, we were at the plane in no time. The FA had a plate of candy to welcome us (very nice it was too!). There was also a stack of magazines on offer but they were all in German so didn't take any. We walked to our seats which turned out to be the second last row :eek:

The plane seemed 99% full, we had one free seat on our row which was great. The crew of 2 FAs sprung into action very quickly after take-off and the first thing we received was a flyer for a 'gourmet' meal for 12 euros.
I had a look at the in-flight bar price list and noted that the prices were very reasonable compared to Finnish prices! Cocktails/drinks were only 3 euros so we decided to go for a Campari... mind you it cost three times the price of our flight :D

They started serving from the first row so it took a while before they got to us. They had a choice of a free cheese or ham sandwich, coffee/tea and soft drinks. We both had the cheese sandwich which was quite large and nice!
There was a large group of men going to see the World Cup and they ordered drinks big time. The FAs were very friendly and pleasant and they made another drinks round before collecting the garbage.

Flight time was around 2 hours and some minutes, the weather was great and we flew over Gotland, Denmark and Northern Germany to land on time.

The return flight was similarly good, except I had wisened up and asked for front seats at check-in to receive seats 2A&B :)

I was suitably impressed with Air Berlin and I wouldn't hesitate to fly them again if the prices are right.

Thanks for the review. I have considered AB when I had a couple of business trips to DUS, but the schedule wasn't that good. Two months ago I saw them serving sparkling wine at the boarding gate in HEL.

Thanks for the review. I have considered AB when I had a couple of business trips to DUS, but the schedule wasn't that good. Two months ago I saw them serving sparkling wine at the boarding gate in HEL.

This must've been the inaugural flight to TXL in the beginning of May.

I flew the inaugural DUS flight on 3rd of February this year and they gave everybody a piccolo bottle of sparkling. Too bad there were no announcements whatsoever why this was done, so probably the majority of the passengers that were not geeks like me did not know it. They couldn't add my TopBonus number since the computer system was not yet properly set up - had to do retro registration for the miles, which worked OK and was fast.

Flew also the TXL flight on its fifth day of operation. Very impressed by it. This time the FF number thingy had been sorted out.

AB is a class act. I just hope that they can keep on offering the great and partially free (food, soft drinks) inflight service and increase the schedules to work better with the business traveller crowds.

BTW AB seems to vary the equipment type on the HEL flights quite a bit, esp for the DUS run. I've seen Fokker-100, 737-700 and -800 (both with and without winglets), don't know if the new A320s have ever made it up here.