If any crew available getting them to the stopover airport would be the first issue. On the other hand AY could probably reroute some pax directly to Europe from SIN on those late departures. For those pax the compensation would be halved, whether AY decides to pay it is another story.

That extra stop could easily been done within the four extra hrs it now took them to add fuel and dump pax...

I assume that AY will learn from this given the relatively recent introduction of the A330 on the route and adjust accordingly.

Back on to the OP's original point I was surprised to find an all Asian crew on the flight and did feel that it wasn't quite as authentic given it's the Finnish flag carrier. This was in contrast to the HEL-OSL leg which was obviously staffed by a Finnish cabin crew.

It would be good to have blended crews to retain the Finnish character but there are obviously HR/contractual barriers to that.

On a recent HEL-HKG flight, the purser was a Finnish gentleman. When I asked him if he was headed back to HEL soon, he responded that he was based in Asia. Although I have no complaints about the Asian crew, it's reassuring to hear Finnish and Finland Swedish languages on the PA system.

Less and less of Fenno-Swedish IME. And when they do speak it, more often than not you can hear them reading from a script not really understanding what they say (the intionation and skipping of syllables gives them away).
Doesn't really matter, these days it is usually better to speak english than to identify yourself as part of the minority (or even worse a swede).

Sure, and especially around the time of the Ice Hockey World Championship. :)

More seriously, if you really push them to choose between speaking Swedish or English to you, (they are obviously trained to always let the customer choose) they almost always go for English.

Just like to add that some of the Malasyian crew speaks a bit of Finnish. Also, flight crew on today's AY82 did annoncements in Finnish only to compensate...

Experienced all Asian crew for the first time on last night's flight from SIN. Better than average AY Finnish or mix crew IMO: efficient, friendly, proactive. Well done!

My words exactly. The purser even spoke Finnish – not very fluently, but his Finnish was way above my Chinese :D