Finnair flies to Miami again in 2015-2016
 

Finnair starts flying to Miami nonstop already October 26 2015 for the winter season - two months earlier as winter 2014-2015. Nice, especially as my flight time Miami-Helsinki in January was only 8 hours 45 minutes because of strong jetstreams. Some turbulence, though

There seems not too many reports here describing how this route has been last winter season?

I would like to burn some upgrades and try non-stop to Miami next winter and curious of experiences, how was it during last winter:
-pricing, availability (I did check during winter and mostly saw awfully high prices ex-HEL) both Y and J
-hard product (is it only the old 340s?)
-soft product (any difference to other routes, cabin FA's, food etc, given flight times)
-upgrades Y to J availability or cash offers
Anyone?

I didn't fly the route myself, but I hear the new J product did at least make an appearance on the route so definitely not restricted to only old 340s.

No idea of the frequency of new/old J though.

W 14/15 it was mostly new J and orginal AY A340. Only for a couple weeks on Thursdays that was LQF/LQG.

This aircraft to MIA is same that arrives from HKG around 6 AM and HKG is new J class -route.

And those two old A340s will disappear during next winter.

Here, I found a trip report MIA-HEL from last winter.

Since the demise of ftdashboad.net it is difficult to track. But according to my sources, MIA has seen these aircraft lately:

This must be wrong:
MIA ended 21 MAR.

Out of interest, what's the economic reasoning for this route? Who is the target market? Nordic leisure passengers?

Yeah, it seems that a lot of Finns like to spend their winter vacation in Florida. I believe it is especially popular with retirees.

Sorry, this should be more correct:

I reckon there must be some historic reason (other than leisure), because the route has regular non-leisuer flight numbers AY7/AY8

The cheapest fare I saw for W14/15 was 350€, last minute booking 1-2 weeks before travel date through aurinkomatkat.fi.

I have flights booked with AA flight numbers for NOV/DEC15 and the price was ok (670€ Incl. MIA-AUA). The outbound flight on NOV28 seems to be on an old A340 while the inbound flight seat map shows the new layout.

MIA is supposedly one of the worst US airports for connections but still a wide network of destinations in Latin America and Florida should he available?

And isn't there a O&D market between Helsinki and Fort Lauderdale?

I did see this too, even if on AY most of the time their fares were high. Makes me wonder they have fairly good slice for Aurinkomatkat and it can be wise to look for them at least if last minute. Then, if you buy just flights from Aurinkomatkat, can you upgrade with AY voucher/points? Or are you limited to Aurinkomatkat's own upgrade pack, anyone knows? At least if you buy AA ticket on AY metal, you cannot use upgrade voucher/points by rule.

I believe AA does have quite a good variety of Caribbean and South American destinations served from MIA. Even though it may not be comparable to say HEL in terms of connections, it would make it more convenient than connecting at JFK.

Always lots of Russians flying to and from Florida.