I fly both AY and LX longhaul J often enough. It's really no contest these days anymore. AY has improved by leaps and bounds, while LX has stagnated. Comparing a AY 350 against a LX 777 is a pretty sad contest - for LX. I think AY food when leaving HEL has been consistently good, and I'd rank it somewhat higher than LX. If both are an option for your flight, I really don't see why you should pick LX, AY is simply better in many ways, and much cheaper as well. LX can cost twice as much in J, and it really is not great value for money at all.

One day I will win the lottery and only fly LX F, though.

Aaaaaand we're back in the regular AY service concept! Same aircraft, same crew, same city pair in opposite direction (HKT-HEL), completely different service concept?! My initial expectations regarding catering ex-HKT were pretty low to begin with. But for some reason I thought that the service delivery would be about the same as on the outbound. No it wasn't. On this segment, the flight attendants were using carts for meal service and there were no linens on the tray table, just on the tray. There was only one option for starter and same with the second meal service, your options were simply to eat or not to eat. And as for the food, it was just what I expected it to be. Unmemorable.https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...86c8d986ea.jpg

Amuse bouche of shrimps
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7165a03209.jpg

Starter smoked salmon, main course stir fry of chicken with rice and bok choy
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4237f7464c.jpg

Dessert cheeses, Emmenthal and blue cheese
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2a23076552.jpg

Mid-flight snack sandwiches
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3c96b6a2ca.jpg

Pre-arrival meal chicken breast with pasta and broccoli, dessert fresh fruit

Gonna be flying Finnair for the first time in 2 weeks.
Finally now I am able to select dinner options on the website (wasn't possible for months).
However, when I select them and continue, the preferences are not saved. I tried 3 times without success.
It's getting incredibly frustrating and quite frankly it spoils the experience with this airline before even boarding!
Absolutely baffling how in 2018 a supposedly premium carrier can fail this badly..

At the final page, the one that looks like a confirmation of saved changes, you need to save changes once more. It is easy to miss, I've done ita few times aswell.

Can you advise which page?
I tried again, but don't see anything.

1 I select the meals
2 I select Continue
3 Getting a page "My Booking" with my fllight and seat details but NOT my meal selection.

I checked twice again, I really don't see any button where I can save changes...

Strange. They seem to have changed the flow. Same thing happens to me when I try now. I think this is a bug. Indeed very annoying!


If you look at the page top when selecting food, you see a progress-bar, indicating you are in step 3 and that step 5 is confirmation. But just as you say, you get returned to MMB as soon as you hit continue, so the confirmation step is never done.

One idea, if you want to try, is to also select at seat (dont worry you can come back and reselect later) . If selecting seat and selecting food takes you to step 5 then all good. Otherwise finnair chat will help you pretty effortlessly, but you are quite right this bad IT experience takes away from the overall. Sadly, Finnair web development is far below acceptable IMO

OK thanks for your help. I don't dare to alter my seat selection as I'm very happy with those seats. I'll give the chat a try.

OK, good luck!

(Also reporting back that changing seats and then pressing continue will take you to confirmation page - listed as step 4 of 4 (!) - and produce an email with any seat assignment done. I don't know if it also saves the meal choice, didn't try that.)

Too bad I forgot to take photos but the new sakura meal in J was a good one! Starter turnips was good and nicely laid, also cod as main was good (seldom well done)
Kudos to AY for once
Trying to remember take some pics on homebound

The Live Chat turned out to be my savior. They did an efficient job in selecting my meals.
Thanks for your suggestion.

MMB refused to show the available menus, so I asked in the Chat what the menu will be for my flight next week.

They provided me with a link where you can look up the menus for upcoming flights:
https://www.finnair.com/fi/gb/business-class-menus

Should this link be added to the Finnair Forum Dashboard?

On my way to PVG and this time with a paid J ticket. The food menu is absolute rubbish in my opinion! Luckily had time to eat something at lounge so I can happily skip what they offer. Seriously Finnair, you think it is ok that "läjä perunamuusia ja kaalikääryle" is served as Chef's Special in BC? The Finnish translation of the menu has even spelling mistakes which in my opinion is unforgivable! Or maybe they are typingvmenus with iPhones like me complaining here!

-sulkkis

But surely your cabbage roll and mash were created by world-famous Tommy Myllymäki? How can you not be satisfied? How ungrateful of you! And before you start wondering whether I'm serious; no, I'm certainly not.

I've been reading Lucky's blog One Mile at a Time a lot lately, and he's got lots of reviews from longhaul J flights. Reading those and looking at the photos make AY J feel like a joke. Or more like a good Premium Economy product. As much as I like "my" airline, and find most FAs very nice, if not especially attentive, the longhaul J product starts to feel less and less like a true business class. Starting with very cramped seats literally falling apart if it wasn't for duct tape, ending with the "okay children, now it's time to eat so sit down, shut up and here's your tray" type of meal service, where they decide when I'm hungry and what time zone my body clock is on, and where they've used the cheapest ingredients possible when their competitors manage to offer good restaurant style meals at best. Not to mention the IFE where the selection is great for a first time flyer and probably still okay for a second time flyer, but for someone who flies AY J only a couple of times a year (which isn't much, considering how frequently people travelling for business purposes may fly these routes) it starts to feel that you've seen everything of interest, and they hardly ever change the programme.

Since this is the food topic, my bottom line here is
- introduce dine-on-demand NOW
- serve full meals on all flights regardless of what the local time at the point of departure might be; your pax couldn't care less about what local time at HEL happens to be – some may already be on Asian time, some on American time and some somewhere in between or what not
- stop using the cheapest possible ingredients; look at what your competitors serve and try to imitate what would be a mid-range restaurant; no, kaalikääryle is not on the menu (and I do like cabbage rolls, but this is not the place to have them)
- include desserts, not just ice-cream (which I do like, but there need to be options)
- stop distinguishing service between destinations; if you have J to HKT, then it's J and not some cheapo-leisure-J that pax only find out once on board (actually, looking at the menus, they might have made an attempt at this) (and this doesn't mean that you can't have region-specific meals; yes, you can, but not as a cost-cutting measure)
- forget Pirkka crisps and Fazer candy bags poured into glasses – you need proper midflight snacks

nuff said! ��

Thanks for the link. After checking out the menu for an upcoming TATL on AY006, I agree with ffay005 that the menu is a little underwhelming. I guess as a pescatarian, my appetizer will be salmon, my entree will be salmon, and I'll have ice cream for desert (hopefully not salmon).

Well at least it seems that the AY5 menu's first light meal is very seasoned traveler since it's GOLD :D

Lumos probably receive a completely different menu with Caviar LUMO :D

I believe it's still possible to order a seafood meal as a special meal. However, I'm not sure it will be anything different from the options you listed. (Ice cream ex-JFK is Häagen Dazs Vanilla.)

Looking through a selection of menus it strikes me as very limited variation across routes. Also, I recognize several of the dishes from before and I haven't been flying for ages.

Interesting to know that they have asigned a menu for NKG AY105 (which starts 15 MAY despite menu change is supposed to happen 8 MAY) but not for the return AY106. Should I bring baguette from Helsinki deli?


--Added
At least on HKG menu there is wine recommendation for some of the meal options. ^

This reminds me of the Seinfeld exchange in which they discuss how Haagen Dazs isn't as fancy as it sounds, and is really made in New Jersey. "They fooled me, Jerry!"

According to my booking it starts already 13 MAY ;)

The file name seems to contain systematically the destination. The file for NKG contains HEL-CKG-CAN, so I expect that it is wrong and will change on 8 MAY. But maybe you can expect that Chongqing, Guangzhou and Nanjing will have the same menu.

Interesting that they are likely having the same food to NKG as CKG and CAN. Sharing the menu with PVG would make more sense, as Jiangsu province is food-wise close to Shanghai.

I really liked that on the HEL-BKK route, too! The wine recommended actually worked very well with the dishes. Funny enough, there were no recommendations on the BKK-HEL menu card. Go figure...

I had the bagel (GOLD) a couple days ago on AY5. I was already getting excited about getting a bagel topped with gold flakes :D

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...510e313548.jpg

AY5 bagel

HEHE, on my reservation too. :o

Yes, pretty much same menu all destinations. Japan seem to differ, but the others look like 'theme with minor viration'.

What a disapointment!


Apparently the GOLD bagel made #7 on some top-10:

Was it a list of the 10 worst ways to spend $1,000?

I am trying clicking on the picture icon to add photo from my phone and yes I can upload a photo but nothing happens

Currently sitting in one of the most cramped J seats of the airline industry on AY142 from BKK. While the seat is terrible, I have to say that I'm quite satisfied with the meal service. I was expecting a lot less.

Amuse Bouche was trout with lime, and it was fine. Appetizer a nicely presented platter with a shrimp and a scallop + some decoration. Main course, brought separately, was salmon. I was positive I would have to add some salt to it but no, the seasoning was quite ok. Frankly, I didn't expect BKK catering to know how to prepare a western salmon dish... Size was okay, too.

The Thai-made vanilla ice cream wasn't very good, but the petit fours turned out to be full-airline-size cakes, two options, and were tasty and nice looking, too.

Fruit salads, Pirkka crisps and Pihlaja (rowanberry) candy is a modest midnight snack, but the menu stated that they would serve the second meal on demand, which they did, too. The pad thai was tasty and filling, and not at all spicy, which my Western taste buds much appreciated.

Not top notch restaurant meals, but certainly adequate and, as said, exceeded my expectations. ^ ^

As promised in other thread, here are pics of my latest AY J-dining experience on ORD-HEL segment. All in all, service was very nice and the meals were above average. Enjoy!https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...bb79d23621.jpg

Amuse bouche, beef Yakitori, if I remember correctly.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9a3d98b2a5.jpg

Appetizer, Gravlax, salmon roe and butternut squash. Side salad with pomegranate seeds. Both were tasty and visually pleasing.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...03358a26fa.jpg

Main, Beef brisket and celeriac puree, kale and butternut squash. Meat was tender and not fatty at all.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c6c14ab6be.jpg

Cheese, Brie and edam
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...03aa5c999e.jpg

Ice cream, Vanilla HD.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d50d80c651.jpg

Breakfast, Frittata with potato and gouda cheese, grilled pork tomato and mushrooms. Very nice, other options were bagel with turkey and cheese or continental breakfast. I was surprised to see three breakfast options.

I have flown 4 long distance J sectors on A350s over the last 2 months.
Not one meal ever offered beef steak !
Loads of fish and things with rice but what about a decent steak ?

Aircraft steaks rarely are decent, IME they are usually super-well-done and rubbery. However, AY's reindeer ex-HEL is delicious and I guess it could (almost) be called a steak. It's available on all longhaul J flights ex-HEL if you preorder. Just ask them not to keep it in the oven for too long.

Flew SFO-HEL-PRG on 04-May and with lowered expectations I was rather happy with the food. I will post photos when I have time. Amuse bouche was lamb kebob with grilled pineapple, I chose the shaved beef appetizer with potato salad & pickles but the FA accidentally served me the gravlax option first which I tasted. It was good but the beef was nicer. For the entree I went with the salmon and it was almost perfectly cooked. Just slightly overdone which for airplane food is pretty good in my opinion. Was still moist and tender. Cheeses were a bit bland. Breakfast there was a savory & sweet option. The savory sounded a bit heavy so I went sweet with a blueberry & mascarpone filled crepe. Appearance wasn't good but taste was. Salad with dinner was basic but good and fruit with the breakfast was ample, fresh and flavorful.

New menus are available.
HEL-NKG options for the main does not look that exciting. I guess I will go for the overcooked reindeer...
Unless I feel for an adventure and try the Chef's special...

Main courses

I just spent 20min with Finnair Chat asking for what options 123 to NKG are since I couldn't find the link to that page with all the menus. The chat person just told me that I can choose between one, two or three. :D

Also, I wonder if they go with the normal menu or actually have something special made for the inaugural one...

Yeah, the new "menu-page" is great, but howcome they don't link from MMB anymore? Maybe they old problem of not being able to show correct menu based on travel date. They can only publish current menu, so If they link they'll show the wrong menu for future flyers.

I would, but only if it had been marked as GOLD ... :D

There is new menu for NKG-HEL too and apparently they are taking the chef-concept to next-level with asian chef doing east-west "fusion" food. Apparently it is to celebrate 30 years of serving Chinese market.

The older menus seems to have "amuse bouche" listed on some of the long haul flights.
The latest ones recently uploaded do not seem to have "amuse bouche" listed on the menu cards.
Is there still the "amuse bouche" or has that been taken off the menu?

This far even if it hasn't been listed in the menu (as has been the case with at least many flights from China) , it has (almost?) always been served. I would be very surprised if they had withdrawn that.

HEL - CAN is on the list but CAN - HEL is missing.