Originally Posted by
reflektia
Well, even if new drinking downgrade is bad, finnair is still the best way to travel from eg. Tokyo to Helsinki. JAL flight takes about one hour extra, and 787 is imo worse experience. Of course ability to do check-in all day in haneda/narita is big bonus for JAL, as is their onboard service. From Seoul or Kansai area finnair has even bigger advantage for Finns.
Of course, for connecting people situation is completely different, and if I lived eg. in London, I wouldn't take finnair. For some routes (eg Miami) I've already used other partners for long time and actively book non-finnair flights.
I agree with you that there are many cases, but for a lot of routes (SIN, BKK etc.), QR/TK have become the new AY, i.e. AY flies over these countries anyway, so if they can facilitate a 1-hour connection, AY is in big trouble.
My point wasn't that there aren't customers who aren't adversely affected by these changes who shouldn't complain, but that there is a big culture of complaining / I'm going to quit AY here for changes that really do not affect very many people. On the champagne point, I think someone here pretty much straight up said "I don't drink champagne, but I'm going to complain out of principle" (same guy who already said he had moved his main flying to SK anyway for another reason). It's a culture of exaggerating every possible problem with AY which may make it seem like AY replaced some high-end champagne with cat piss instead of what the actual situation was.
And by the way, some of the busiest complainers here are actually ex-EU flyers..