I've never seen such consistently negative reviews of an airline as I have of CA, and I wanted to know how accurate those were.

I am pleased to say that I found it to be a pretty darn good airline. Exit row seats in both directions probably helped with that.

However, I will probably not fly them again unless I can start my journey at a major hub. I needed BA feeder flights to/from LHR, and the interlining meant I could only check in for my first flight in each direction. This, coupled with a variety of flight delays and the complete failure of both BA's OLCI on my phone and my travel agent's 24-hour assistance number, meant extremely stressful transfers between T2 and T5 and a very real chance that I was going to miss both connections. Obviously not all of those issues are CA's responsibility, but if I can minimise those potential problems by choosing Finnair in future, I will.

A note for non meat eaters: definitely order a special meal. The trolley options tended to be beef/chicken, occasionally shrimp/chicken.