It's also one of the longest Euro routes, so if any route warrants J, this would. On my flights late April and today, J was 6 rows and many of the J pax were Asian, most likely Japanese (based on which flights were shown on the Connections screen upon landing at HEL). Many Finns in J, too, though.

I wonder if the JV really has an impact here, though. Do people fly to the US via MAD? Without looking at IB TATL schedules, my guess would be that eastbound might work, westbound not so.

It would also be interesting to know if the MAD route brings in any money. They fly A321s which usually seem at capacity, but that one plane does nothing all day except flies MAD-HEL-MAD with a 1.5 hour layover at HEL (actually today, this really was the case as the exact plane was to fly back to MAD the same day). On other routes, the same plane could fly FIN-HEL-EUR-HEL-EUR-HEL-FIN, which surely should bring in more money. Nowadays, AY saves some money by using MAD-based cabin crews, but still...