intuition

Easily fixed!
http://www.shopdrawdecal.com/SearchR...&Submit=Search

They even carry the 1990's Santa Claus livery for MD11.

Courmisch

So when we get the Kivet livery model on the store? OH-LTO is there@:-) Then again, only that one and the hysterical raisin A340 are currently available. No A350 and nor narrow-body models

remymartin

Indeed! Just as I went to the satellite lounge to get one more glass I was approached by the attendant inside the lounge: "sir, we just got a call from Finnair. They would like to upgrade you. You may want to go a bit earlier"

SPBanker

^^^

remymartin

You'll be happy to know I received an opup on AY5 the next day too - although under a bit of a more dramatic "double beep" process.

haa

On Saturday I flew into Helsinki the proper way, landing at an airport which is actually in Helsinki, on a shiny airplane with traditional Finnish Airlines livery on it.

FT-translation: Did a HEM-LPP-HEM day trip on the ex-Aero/Finnair DC3 operated by http://www.dc-ry.fi

The two one hour flights were long enough to get a real feel of air travel in the old days, including great engine sounds, flying in (not above) the weather, cockpit visits, etc.

Nostalgic Finnair-related experience that I can recommend!

Bonus "Lounge" review: The aviation museum and aviation club at LPP served great grilled sausages and pulla in huge hangars full of cool aviation stuff, with full view and access to the tarmac to look at planes ;-)

PS. LPP seems to be a popular summer travel destination this year for exotic planes, on Friday Putin's Tupolev 214 landed there, and on Saturday this historic DC3...

Justinus

At the HEL Plat desk some weeks ago (flying first to a domestic destination):

Me: "But this long haul business class ticket should be changeable..."
Desk: "Sir, there is no business class on domestic routes..."
Me: "Yeah, I know that..."
Desk: "Ooooh.... you are a Platinum member. I guess you knew that."

cistavoda

Plat desk sounds as clueless as always...

intuition

The HEL plat desk seems to be the most peculiar thing in the Finnair arsenal of loyalty efforts.
"Let's create a unique spot for meeting our most well travelled customers and let's staff it with our most ignorant and uncommitted workers."

np1

That's why I always go there to see how well and unique way I'll be served today. Maybe they trust that plats know how to protect themselves from incompetent workers.

ottersmacker

This is more of a Finavia/Swissport höpö-höpö post, but here we go

After "boarding" at 23B today, the passengers, yours truly included, of AY119 HEL-TAY had the wonderful experience of getting bussed from 23B ... to a different terminal building (instead of an ATR-72 as you'd expect). The building contained gates 51 (A, B etc). One of the pax was savvy enough to notify the driver that something may be wrong when we got there. We waited around for 20min or so without knowing much at all, but all pax seemed relatively cool about it. The bus then returned and we got on again, only to unboard the bus .. to board it again one by one while being manually checked against the manifest (which in itself makes sense of course, can't be losing people - could have been handled in one go, though!). We were then taken to our ATR

A bit of a strange experience, all good for someone not in a hurry I guess. We ended up being maybe 30min late to TAY. The plane had NF in stock (a welcome change compared to JP that I've been usually seeing since May).

Courmisch

While your specific case looks like a cluster**** by some airport staff, it is possible to be bussed to a terminal gate.

I once boarded a CDG-bound narrowbody parked at a non-Schengen terminal gate. We were bussed from one of the regular Schengen bus gates to the tarmac for boarding via stairs through the aft door.

Many passengers were loudly wondering about the seemingly retarded setup. I explained in my perfect French

intuition

As gate 51 is outside Schengen, I guess swissport decided to deport you all...

(Can't understand how any employee at the airport could lack the understanding of what is schengen/non-schengen. Even if he got a workorder "drive from 23 to 51", driver should emmediately react and say "this can't be right")

TPJ

But IMHO it still happens fairly rarely with AY in HEL.

Try LO in WAW - their first Schengen arrival bank connects with the first non-Schengen departure bank and it is normal that you arrive at a jetty position bur deplaning is via stairs as this particular jetty is at a non-Schengen area (and the aircraft's next flight is to a non-Schengen destination). It is the same with the mid-afternoon bank (but direction is opposite: from non-Schengen to Schengen).

OH-LGG

How about taking wife with You on AY flight. She gets now 25% discount.

Ad (In Finnish) in Savon Sanomat and the year was 1968:

http://www.savonsanomat.fi/incoming/...ir68%20(2).JPG