JoWa

Not so sure abt that.
On my last BKK flight, the seat next to me was occupied by a young thai lady.
I just knew that she was op-upīd, and got it confirmed. And she was not that happy about it. Sheīd been visiting Finland with her Finnish BF, and now they were returning.
She was not very amused by being deported to my bench instead of being with her BF in the cozy back of the bus...
Further, she drank no alcohol, and hardly ate anything of the food.
Needless to say, I hardly believe she had any status or high booking class.
O my, such a sad waste of nice seat and F&B they could have treated some other pax with...
(Something tells me her BF e. g. would appreciate at least the alcohol... ;-) )

teme

Having just completed return trip to Toronto in business class, here are thoughts of my experience.

Outbound to Toronto:

Great purser set the tone for a pleasant late afternoon flight. Dinner service was prompt but not rushed. Food from Savoy chef Kari Aihinen was tasty and nicely presented. Business class was almost full, my impression that not so many upgrades on this flight. No elite recognition (OWE).

Inbound to Helsinki:

Very underwhelmed with the experience. What looked out the be a quiet business class cabin turned out to be full of uppgraded passenger from heavily overbooked economy.
Purser seemed very disorganized. Dinner without aperitives was finished 2.5 hours after fairly late deprture time (10.35PM). No hot towels during the flight.
Catering was a mess. No amuce bouche mentioined on the menu was served. Salad missed vinegrette, fish lacked the sauce. When asked for port with dessert, the purser just said "finished" (loppu suomeksi). We sat on a first row, by the way. Same thing with orange juice at breakfast. Cabin was very hot through out the flight.
And to have a great ending to this flight, one of the stewardess came to say: "Don't you spleep so much better when you can have your feet up during the flight", implaying how fortunate we were to be upgraded from economy, although travelling with paid business class tickets

Yes, this sounds like a rant and price of the business class ticket was cheap. But these small things built up a very unpleasant experience. I think Finnair should have some consistancy with the service provided onboard.

intuition

So the upgrade circus continues. Do you know which plane was serving your YYZ-HEL (especially if it was a config with or without mini-j-cabin)?

For me, 2 out of 2 YYZ-HEL were delayed. First time it was announced as "something still isn't ready in the cabin" and second time it was said to "refuelling". Interesting that cabin can't be ready made in the 4 hour turn around, and that fuelling was initiated just a few minutes before scheduled take off.
To me this looks like AY has not secured the correct service slots, ie they do not have service contracts to get ground service fitting to their flight slots.

1 of 2 HEL-YYZ was delayed due to "we are waiting for catering", indicating that they on my trip at least was aware that they needed to load 40 more J meals due to upgrades. On your trip they probably left HEL before deciding to op-up the lot.

Great move to mistake you for an op-up - another proof that economy pax is more important to AY business that J pax. Sometimes on these flights with massive op-ups they hand out feedback forms to the op-ups (to get the good grades). I always make sure I get a form.

OH-LGG

YYZ, ORD and JFK are now all served by LTS-LTU so no minicabin there.

Flythe96flag

What a lousy experience, having a cabin full of op-ups draining the catering of a lighter planned load. IMO this is a serious deterioration of the 'premium' J product, not to mention the apparent lackluster process of upgrading resulting in statusless first time J fliers filling the cabin. I'm not saying that in an elitist way, it just surprises me how out of touch Finnair appears to be in terms of loyalty management, when compared to how other OneWorld airlines handle upgrades.

Courmisch

It's just weird that they upgrade statusless passengers. If Y is still oversold after all Oneworld elites, all previously inconvenienced passengers and all Pro tickets holders are upgraded, they could simply go through the Basic members in decreasing order of tier points.

teme

Yes, the plane was OH-LTT. After my burst in the previous post, I have tried to calm down and come up with something positive about the flight. Yeah, the crew was working hard, the flight was an schedule, plane was clean inside etc.

Anyway, my other half summed it up by saying "worst long haul business class flight ever, even surpassing a miserable SAS experience years ago" and suggested that we spend our money better (=another company) on our next trip.

Helsinki Flyer

Oh no! You ended up on an all asian bounce. You didnīt get to hear the Finnish announcements going on and on, not understading a word. I sincerely hope that you didnīt have to sit next to HELīs bikeys.

intuition

+1 on you all.

On my last YYZ-HEL one of the statusless Y pax that was upgraded was an "it" girl. You can imagine the premium feeling of the cabin while she documented every detail and sent pictures and status updates to blogg/social media. Sadly, I'm afraid AY thinks this is good PR. I guess, if you can't satisfy your premium paying customers, it is better to sway those who have no idea what to expect (and who have no intention of ever paying for it)

zz2008

I am guessing I am getting an equipment change - 10//07/15 AY032 is showing the mini cabin. Any chance that changes? I booked in the main j cabin to be safe - J looks pretty full already so I am guessing not many op-ups will happen.

Rivarix

Do these issues in J happen regularly throughout the year on all routes or just certain routes at certain times of the year (i.e. say summer)? I mean I don't have an issue with op-up per se (I was a beneficiary when I first started to fly TPAC regulary a decade ago ) though it is certainly problematic when it affects service and overall cabin environment.

I'm going to fly AY (first time ever) in Nov to asia ... and now beginning to wonder whether I should've stayed w/ QR or CX J which I usually take on such trip. I mean does AY really stuff J with op-up regularly (like US based airlines)?

reflektia

Maybe they just run out of FFP members? I was opupped in january on KIX-HEL and according to FA there were grand total of 5 FFP members onboard consisting 1 AY+P, 1 AY+S, 1 AA platinum and 2 JMB members.

cistavoda

Maybe I am one of the bikeys

SPBanker

It seems to be an issue on select routes. I fly NRT, PEK and HKG pretty often. None of this funny stuff on those routes.

Courmisch

But that's just the (5) elites. Even if there were zero inconvenienced passengers and zero Pro/flex passengers, there must have been some AY+Basic with tier points (at least from their previous HEL-KIX). That was my point.

I suspect an IT problem here. The system likely does not provide useful data about non-elites. I have not been able to look very closely at it, but from what I saw, only elites are explicitly flagged on the computers at the gate.