intuition

I am happy to be proven wrong, so don't get me wrong. But I fail to understand how those are to be compared to the sitiation with AY premium lounge? I am talking about offering a "premium lounge above business class, not accesible to business class passengers" and giving it away for free to OWS. Because that is what AY is doing, and that is what I find unique (and a bad move).

Please correct me if I misunderstand!

AMM - there is only one RJ lounge, Crown lounge available for all Crown class passengers, so I don't understand how that is applicable? BTW, Crown lounge is also a pay-in lounge, can't see how preemium that makes it.

DUS - Do you mean Hugo Junker lounge or Air Berlin lounge? Is anyone of these an "premium", almost first class lounge? I can't find anything on AB webpages claiming they even have an exclusive premium lounge anywhere.

MAD - Again, there are several IB lounges, and they are all offered to all IB business class passengers. Or is anyone of them above business class and restricted to tier members?

teemuflyer

Perhaps I just misunderstood. In any case, it is true that the Finnair Premium Lounge is somewhat of an oddity in the OW network. But happy it Is there

FFlash

Again time for a little feedback.

4-5pm "wave shock", queue to the lounge since the dragon is fighting with a guy who seems to have OW Ruby card, but apparently not updated somehow so he is claiming to have a OWS and want to come in to the premium side. Finally the dragon puts him to wait and we are processed (3 people in front of me had guests too) to get in to see that there was NOT A SINGLE seat available during the whole time to board my flight. So I was eating standing, and a couple of other people too.

I was feeling for a shower, went in just to find not a single shower available. Once free'ed, there was nobody attending and cleaning the shower room. More waiting. Same happened. During waiting a cleaner I realized that most of these people were not having a shower, apparently they just were there for a toilet visit, since the actual toilets were occupied all the time too! What an experience, after that I felt like I would need a sauna to take a more proper relax, but no, I don't take that sauna shower

Again, why is it so difficult to restrict the access (of lower cards / non-AY cards / guests) during peak times?

miamiflyer8

At MAD, J PAX Sapphire and Emerald can access all Iberia lounges. It's only the a la carte dining in the T4S Velazquez that is restricted to J only.

intuition

I arrived at 11:00 today and I was the only one in the lounge. Strange, I can't recall being alone in any lounge at any airport at any time.

Now at 16:00 it is 100% full, but at least not overfull. No standing guests.
No sight of any hot food (supposed to be served between 15:00-17:30) unless the two soups and the roasted vegetables that has been here all day is that hot food. The usual snack-sized coldcuts are here, and a few new to me, an nice pickled herring for example.
Coffee machine broken (you could see it leaking inside). I told the staff and they put up a sign telling us to order coffee from the bar. I'm guessing it wasn't the first time.

So it is business as usual here. It is a great lounge, but it is certainly not premium.

LifeontheBeach

So there are two lounges. OK. As a newbie to Helsinki, which one is better for sleeping and/or for food? Are there any links to photos of the lounges, by any chance?

I'm OW Sapphire flying Finnair Business.

intuition

There are 2 Finnair lounges on the non-schengen side, yes. As arule of thumb, the premium one is better. Same entrance, go to the left after signing in.

The premium lounge has 3-4 relax-chairs in a part of the lounge that is separated by a glass wall. It is decently quite there, and decently dark.

Food is nowhere near what is served in a proper first lounge, most of the day it is snack food, albeit "luxury" snack food.

SPBanker

Right now in the Premium Lounge. Plenty of people, but not filled to the rafters like it sometimes is. Approaching X-mas already reducing number of premium pax?

I really like the elk pate with pickeled chanterelles!^

JoWa

The chairs in the relax room of the Premium Lounge are too curved and hard to make sleeping possible, you´d probably sleep better in one of the normal chairs.
(And even better in the coffins outside the lounges)
Which I´m sure is intentionally, pax shouldnt miss their flights.

teemuflyer

+1^

miamiflyer8

You're right, the Premium Lounge is the only elite service they do right. The Business Lounges are terrible on each side of the airport.

Justinus

My humble request to AY is the following: either double the size of the present Premium Lounge or exclude OW Sapphires.

miamiflyer8

That would violate the OneWorld policy, which says that Sapphires have access to frequent flyer lounges and Business Lounges, since Finnair doesn't have First Class, this lounge falls under the category of frequent flyer lounges.

Purjelentaja

Or it should be upgraded to be a real first class lounge, and also called one, as a lounge can be first class one even without airline having one onboard. But then, the Premium lounge is not up to the level expected of first class lounges and it should be upgraded to proper level.

TTL

Luckily there are not so many sapphires bouncing around in HEL, so the OW rules will not cause AY so bad a dilemma. But the decision to allow AY rubys to any lounge in HEL should need some consideration at least in the Schengen lounge. Division to two lounges would help also there?