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Old Apr 21, 2016, 8:22 am
  #1  
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More bus travel at HEL

E-mail from AY+ today

Smooth travelling – even in the midst of Helsinki Airport's expansion

blah, blah

In non-Schengen and long-haul traffic passengers will also temporarily be transported to their aircraft by bus more frequently. Finavia is currently building a new hall, where you can wait for your transport in a modern and inviting space. The hall will open in June opposite the Finnair Lounge in the non-Schengen area. In early June we will also add more security and border control points and increase the use of fast lanes to make connecting flights at Helsinki Airport as smooth as possible.

More information on Finavia's website.


Ouch! Hopefully no tight connection pax on those buses! (oh, how I hate apron arrivals)

A nice touch would be to bus C pax separately (many airports do this) without having to wait for Granny Smith from row 36 to make it to the bus (as today from ARN) An important factor for the C traveller is to get out asap, not hanging around in a bus.
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Old Apr 21, 2016, 10:21 am
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
...
A nice touch would be to bus C pax separately (many airports do this) without having to wait for Granny Smith from row 36 to make it to the bus (as today from ARN) An important factor for the C traveller is to get out asap, not hanging around in a bus.
Extremely unlikely development IMHO, even if I'd like to see this too. HEL has already made it into an artform to fit all passengers into one bus for comfort. Can't remember last time they "wasted" 2 busses to offload a plane. In a capacity constrained airport it would be foolish to use small busses that they need to run more of/at higher frequencies.

Not that they are unable to do the switch now if they wanted. Bus fleet is renewed aswell, they are buying 11 new busses, both adding new capacity and replacing existing. But my guess they are making sure all busses are super-duper-high-capacity, to serve those 12 new busgates efficiently. Further erroding of Euro-J thus.
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Old Apr 21, 2016, 11:51 am
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
E

Ouch! Hopefully no tight connection pax on those buses! (oh, how I hate apron arrivals)

A nice touch would be to bus C pax separately (many airports do this) without having to wait for Granny Smith from row 36 to make it to the bus (as today from ARN) An important factor for the C traveller is to get out asap, not hanging around in a bus.
Well agreed. Also I would add that during winter freeze it would be really worth to have 2 buses where the one can go and pre-board "early group" pax while the other one is waiting for late-arriving connecting pax. Nowadays you freeze in a bus which is boarding at bus gate, stand in the bus 40 mins doors open in -30C freezing to death waiting for 1 or 2 late connecting pax to get onboard ""^".

Mind you I was surprised 2 weeks ago when I had bus get at HEL and a Minibus came to get us to the plane!!! Never recall happening that before! We were some 10 people going to TMP. Guess what I was asking the driver why you don't do this more often but he did not get the question.
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Old Apr 21, 2016, 12:43 pm
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Originally Posted by intuition
Can't remember last time they "wasted" 2 busses to offload a plane. In a capacity constrained airport it would be foolish to use small busses that they need to run more of/at higher frequencies.
At least for my flight today there were 3 buses to offload the plane (2 small and 1 big) and some special transportation for some in wheelchair.

For the next flight we had a small bus (and also an ATR) for 6 people. I didn't complain.
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 7:35 am
  #5  
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Leaving to NRT from gate 37E - currently after the gate, in a really ugly holding pen, waiting for the bus. No priority boarding, or anything. Not really the beginning of a premium trip. Let's hope it gets better on board.
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 7:51 am
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
Leaving to NRT from gate 37E - currently after the gate, in a really ugly holding pen, waiting for the bus. No priority boarding, or anything. Not really the beginning of a premium trip. Let's hope it gets better on board.
37E really is the worst. I can't understand why it is there as a permanent gate. It's really just... inhumane.
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 11:38 am
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
... waiting for the bus. No priority boarding, or anything. Not really the beginning of a premium trip. Let's hope it gets better on board.
Even if it will be bad on board, I highly doubt they will ride the bus to all the way to NRT
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 11:42 am
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Tomorrow morning tavelling to Zurich, seems to be also a bus.

I hope either Finnair distributes their flights more or they build more gates .
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 12:10 pm
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Oh, don't worry: Finavia is building more jet bridges.

In a few years.

And Finnair's CEO said that they plan to increase the number of flight banks at HEL.

In 2020 or later.


Anyway - I don't remember 37E, but I prefer the bus gates 32x over bridge gate 24 anytime. Gate 24 has become an unspeakable mess with the restaurant tables in the way.
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 12:15 pm
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Bus rides are ok when weather is ok. Jet bridges are dark and boring.

It's nice when plane is parked somewhere where You can't never see or go without that bus ride. Like today AY73 seemed to parked in HEL technical area, stand 8xx. Interesting place anyway.

At DMK Don Muang I like when bus takes to domestic plane which is parked somewhere near corrosion corner where old beauties are parked. They are more interesting than flying somewhere. ^
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 1:20 pm
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
Leaving to NRT from gate 37E - currently after the gate, in a really ugly holding pen, waiting for the bus. No priority boarding, or anything. Not really the beginning of a premium trip. Let's hope it gets better on board.
Why on Earth do they choose a high-yield route such as NRT and probably a full plane for a bus gate? NRT should be top priority as far as jetbridges or pretty much anything else is concerned.
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 1:24 pm
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Originally Posted by ffay005
NRT should be top priority as far as jetbridges or pretty much anything else is concerned.
Why? What special 73 to NRT had today?

ICN and XIY were bus gates today also.
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 2:09 pm
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Boarding by bus is faster than by jet bridge.

Jet bridge is more convenient for the passengers.
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 4:02 pm
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Originally Posted by OH-LGG
Why? What special 73 to NRT had today?

ICN and XIY were bus gates today also.
I see it this way:

Boarding by bus sucks. Thus, the most valuable flights should never be boarded by bus. During the Asian wave, this would probably mean PVG and NRT.

When you have to bus some passengers, choose low-yield destinations, perhaps with a half-empty J cabin. Like CKG. Or XIY?
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Old Apr 24, 2016, 4:15 pm
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Originally Posted by ffay005
I see it this way:

Boarding by bus sucks. Thus, the most valuable flights should never be boarded by bus. During the Asian wave, this would probably mean PVG and NRT.

When you have to bus some passengers, choose low-yield destinations, perhaps with a half-empty J cabin. Like CKG. Or XIY?
What makes NRT or PVG most valuable route then?

One thing is rotation. 73 was LQE which arrived early morning from SIN while most of Asian departures had aircraft coming from Asia and quick turn around back. = time saving.

Trust me, they know how to coordinate gates and stands.
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