Originally Posted by
chadzuk
Direct is always preferred! I've had a few issues with BA over the years..the seats are comfortable thuogh!
I've never flown with Finnair and I wonder if it's worth giving them a chance? The prices seem more reasonable but I wonder about the whole experience?
It is difficult to beat a direct flight in convienience, but usually one pays the price for that. I'd say quite a few people here are advocating the use of BA even from HEL for that reason (ie they prefer HEL-LHR-HKG before the direct HEL-HKG)
I'd like to offer a different opinion than above, admittedly based on my personal experience on a few BA flights.
I suggest you go with AY. Yes, it is not a direct flight, but the flight-path LHR-HKG is almost identical to LHR-HEL-HKG, and the connection in HEl is very smooth. So you wont lose much time on this.
You will save money on this choice.
As for total experience, it will differ with crew. AY crews are usually a bit less chatty than BA. Servicewise they are usually quite good. If you compare to the best of BA crews, AY are "worse" but on BA you take the chances of meeting a really bad/impolite/unproffesional crew, which I never had on AY. My personal view is that I hands down prefer AY crew over BA on a average.
It may be nice to try AY just for a change too.
If IFE is really important to you then AY may not be the right choice. There have been quite a few trips with semi-functioning IFE.
If full flat horizontal bed is really important to you, AY may disappoint you. On HKG route it is almost always A340 in service, so very little chance of getting the A330's with new J-cabin. I personally don't have any issues with AY's A340-seats, and actually prefers these over the BA cabin layout (reversed seats with separate foot rest to act as part of the bed)