Selected the seats as OWE(BA) then during the check-in changed to AY+(no one) and seat(exit row) in one flight went to paid option.Then changed the seat to a random seat and it went to SBY(standby). Chat agent could not help, told me that I have to check-in in the airport. Intra EU flight with Norra operated Embraer.

Sounds like an overbooked flight where they would have protected an OWE.

I’m surprised nobody has yet commented here on the appointment of a new CDO. From Finnair LinkedIn:

Tomi Pienimäki has been appointed as Finnair Chief Digital Officer and a member of the Finnair Executive Board. Our current CDO Katri Harra-Salonen will leave the company on September 30. Under Katri’s leadership, Finnair has taken a great digital leap, and technology is now a natural part of the strategy and daily work at Finnair. Our entire personnel now use iPhones and mobile applications designed to support their work, we utilize AI in a completely new way, and we have launched new innovative services for our customers. The work continues now with Tomi, who joins Finnair on October 1, 2019, to develop the technology solutions for Finnair’ s next strategic phase together with the Finnair team.

Officers come and go. What kind of comments we need here about appointments?

Sorry, I won’t comment here anymore if that is the reaction and attitude. As we seem to be so unsatisfied with the website, I thought it would be noteworthy that one of the key decision-makers changes.

You think this new guy starts to fix AY's poor website and poor booking engine on 1st October?

I really wonder what the f*** I’ve done to you?

I think this puts the roll-out of the new site in a quite new perspective.
The speculations so far has been a bonus was attached to a launch-date, but now it looks more like someone gave notice of resignation and was more or less forced to roll out the site, with Finnair making a public promise the site is to be completed "later in 2019". And now we know there will be a new CDO "later in 2019". What a coincident...

As for a new CDO to have any real impact on the tragedy that is Finnair booking process? Not a chance. I've seen so many iterations of this site over a decade, and while I always say "it couldn't possibly get worse than this", they always manage to make the site worse by each iteration. And one only needs to read the statement on the purpose of the new site to realise it has nothing to do with usability och utility. It is always about percieved modernism. A new look, a new platform, a new payment method.
:(

Thanks intuition for a proper answer.

If we speculate, this could also mean that this is a consequence of a poor new site. The digital experience for clients isn’t what it should be and someone had to be accountable.

I don’t know anything about the new CDO, but I can only hope that customer experience will be more important for him. The crew seems satisified with their tools, and now it’s maybe time to fix the client side?

It must be very complex to build good airline sites as many airlines struggle with it. Many years ago I heard an explanation that the core systems that airlines use are very old and therefore it is difficult to build new sites on top of them. I don’t know if that is still the case.

I think the time-frame between launch and news is too small to indicate anyone was fired. (for all we know, the launch might be a huge success)

I know nothing about the new CDO either, but luckily the internets does. He has held 2 CEO titles in software development industry for a semi-short time (≈2 years each), including Jolla (Sailfish OS). Before that with Posti for 7 years (not sure that counts as an asset ;) 5 years as IT-director with Hackman. I'd say he is not a "tech-guy", he has no hands-on experience with the stuff. Which doesn't mean he can't lead of course, but I wouldn't hold my breath for a new leadership that puts prio on anything we would appreciate.

If I had to guess, they took him for his experience with mobile, even though developing a mobile OS has little to do with what AY does.

Let's hope he does! I have no idea who this guy is, but we can only hope he's been booking a few flight tickets on his own, and from several airlines or OTAs, so he has some first hand experience on what such a process requires.

I'm growing tired of having to call AY almost every time I want to book something else than a simple return ticket. Yes, they waive the phone ticketing fee, but it's frustrating and takes up both their and my time.

I don't know anything about how these systems work, but if ITA Matrix can find all the fares, and can offer a huge number of options, couldn't AY partner with them, have their systems do the dirty work (ie look for fares) and then proceed to AY for ticketing?

Most people book simple returns, and the ITA platform is simple to use in those cases. But it also allows us to choose certain airlines, number of stops, time of day etc, and it allows us to feed the flights one by one if building a multi-city itinerary. If all this is available as of now, why would it be so difficult for AY to build a website that allows this?

My guess is, their attitude is more like "99% buy returns, the rest can go wherever they want, no reason to invest in them".

ITA is just a search engine crawling through all published routes and fares. They don't have the trouble of having to supply the actual ticket to you and they also can't find much that's not available on finnair.com either.
I guess they are feeling the pain of all those routes not visible anywhere anymore. Can't imagine much travelers searching high and low for a Finnair ticket from Asia to North America after they didn't find it in the first place plainly in front of them. They must lose quite a bit of money.

Anyway, I appreciate ANY change they are bringing and I am hopeful, that this change will bring some improvements for us.

Oh yes! And the most frustrating thing is, that while you are doing your 3-5 tries from different angles getting your ticket, you know already, that it doesn't make any sense and that you will end up calling them.

Sent a message to AY regarding a separate matter yesterday, and whilst at it, also added my concerns about the web site and especially the "old" vs the "new" on top of their SSO and dead end links...

Here was the reply:

"I apologise that you have faced difficulties with using our Internet page and the transfer between old and new Finnair Internet page has not been fluent.
At the moment we are renewing our Internet services which has caused some online difficulties. Our Internet department is aware of the problems and we are doing our best to fix the problems and offer well functioning services.
I have forwarded your feedback to our Internet department. They are grateful that you, as our important Platinum member, took the time to write to us. I wish that your experience on our Internet page will be better after the renewal has been completed. Thank you for writing to us."