This has happened to me quite often. I am usually happy to be a good citizen.

Let me be the one who complains about complainers for a while :p

How can you guys make a problem out of how many Finncrisps you are offered when the crew will give you just as many as you like? Always when I choose Finncrisps from the bread basket, I just say, "I'll have two/three Finncrisps, please." Of course the true Finnish way is not to say anything and then complain afterwards to friends if you aren't happy, but aren't we FTers a little better and bolder than that?

Nooo! We need a "Not enough Finncrisps anymore!" thread!

But seriously, I didn't read that as a complaint, just normal banter.

food cart in J
 

Have they been pushing the food cart for a while now? Currently on HEL-JFK. Pre-plated plastic tray from the cart is being served...

The only datapoint I can offer is that this has happened to me once on HND-HEL flight few months ago.

Presented without comment...

Twitter

How sustainable!

I think I had it once (or maybe twice) in 7 longhaul J flights this year, mostly they've brought the tray from the galley. Or technically it didn't happen to me, since I asked for my meal about 2 hours before others on BKK-HEL, but everyone else was served from a trolley.

Happened to me on bkk flight both ways a few weeks back. Really makes it feel like economy catering..

I wouldn't get angry about the feeling, but what about portions for grown-ups? There's no need to talk about the taste and timing.
t's amazing why they present their premium class in such a poor light, at these prices it's just embarrassing.

I was under the impression that the second meal service was to be removed (and substituted by a bread roll) only for JFK and DXB. But now the current HEL-DOH menu only lists a cheese bagel before arrival. :(

Hel-bkk is fine in my opinion, but bkk-hel not so much. On the bright side, crew came around quite often to offer fruit plates/sandwiches during the flight. I had some of my friends flying J for the first time and even they were really dissapointed with the food quality offered on the way back.

That's because you can have some bites in the lounge before you fly, and you sleep most of the time. And so the timing goes pretty much along with your normal day. Not too much on the way back.

In my opinion the biggest problem is the quality of food catered ex-BKK. Not saying HEL-catered food is excellent but it is of significantly better quality than the food ex-BKK.

I haven't talked about the quality of AY food for some time. It's usually inferior for business class, so they find fancy additives to make it at least sound good.
I always wonder how much I have on my plate and wonder why they don't also list every single spice on the menu to make it sound more exciting and like more.
I remember well the days when there was soup beforehand, and a piece of beef was also relatively normal ex BKK, but most importantly, the portions were about as big as you would expect in a restaurant. I'm not even talking about the cognac afterwards. The crew taught me the beautiful word "Avec".

KIX to HEL in Biz class
 

We’re flying Osaka to Helsinki on Saturday and I tried chatting with a Finnair rep who was pretty useless so I’m posting the same questions here hoping someone knows the answer.
1. Since the flight leaves KIX at 22:30 and we plan to go to sleep right away, is it possible to get the main meal when we wake up? 2. What are the options for the main meal on this route? Is there a non-meat option or do we need to request a vegetarian meal (we’re OK with fish) 3. What lounge do business class passengers use at KIX? 4. Since we have a long layover in Helsinki before our connecting flight to CDG we were planning on seeing the town a bit. Can we check our luggage through to CDG when we arrive?
Answers to any of those questions will be appreciated. Thanks.

Finnair CS is extremely useless with any questions like these. They really are only capable of handling extremely simple tasks such as seat assignments or date changes.

You may ask the cabin crew upon boarding if you could have your meal later on but there is no official dine-on-demand service (they used to print it on the menu but even then it was hit or miss) and your request may be granted or met with an eyeroll.

There is most often one vegetarian option ex-HEL and at least one of the options will be fish/seafood ex-KIX as well. Not sure your preferred option would be available if you chose to eat after the main service but likely there would be at least fish or vegetarian available. If you want to guarantee it, do order a special meal.

Lounge at KIX is KIX North lounge but you can choose to use JAL Sakura lounge if it is in the correct terminal (I’m not familiar enough with KIX).

Is your flight to CDG on the same tix? I’m not sure if you want to retrieve your luggage at HEL or not?

Yes, our flight to CDG is on the same ticket. We don’t want our luggage when we land so if it’s possible to check it through to CDG that would be preferable.
Thanks for the other info.

They have been outsourced to Bulgaria and those people have probably never set foot on a plane, let alone an AY plane, so… :)

If you ask nicely before take-off (before they start reheating the dishes), a good FA will allow this. If you have status, it might help. But there is no official policy, and you might be denied, too.

Flights from outstations are not published on the menu page, and I have no personal knowledge of the KIX route, but often there is one cheap meat alternative, one fish and one vegetarian. There will always be a non-meat option.

North lounge at gate 19.

At KIX, they will check your luggage straight through to CDG if your layover is less than 24 hours and all flights are operated by AY.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ab0019585.jpeg
HEL-DOH J prearrival meal

What a substantial and well-balanced second service on HEL-DOH ;)

By the way, while this bagel contained kermajuusto, it did not contain cream cheese…

Thanks
 

Thanks to all who replied to my questions. I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry in response to the last post of the bagel :) :(

I am laughing at the "artisan handcraft bagel". It's just as "artisan handcraft" as I make my sandwiches at home by putting cheese and lettuce on top of a piece of bread.

Glad to meet, fellow artisan :D

AY33 Hel-sea 5/31
 

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e4e488fb8.jpeg
The cold plates were fantastic. The pork belly was good. Quiche was inedible. I tried the cloudberry dessert wine and loved it. Service and attention from the FA’s was outstanding.

Update
 

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9f8ff79f9.jpeg
So to follow up on my original questions here is what we discovered on our flight this past weekend. The FA we asked about having our main meal when we woke up was fantastic. She was like a mother hen, watching when we awoke and coming over to tell us it would take about 20 minutes to warm up the meal. Unfortunately the meal wasn’t great but it was filling. It sounded better on the menu than it tasted in actuality. Our bags were checked onward to CDG so we could explore Helsinki. The Sakura lounge reopened on June 1 so that is the one we used in KIX. I have never been in a sadder lounge, the food offerings were not appetizing and it felt dark and cramped. The saving grace was the massage chairs that are available in the lounge. On the other hand the lounge in HEL is lovely and for breakfast the food was pretty good. It is extremely light and airy with lots of space. It felt crowded at times but at other times it was relatively empty. The plane from KIX to HEL had not been refurbished with the new seats but we found the old seats easy to use and quite comfortable for sleeping. The flight from HEL to CDG was in an old plane and the business class seats are essentially exactly the same as the rest just with more leg room. We expected that but had not anticipated how tired we would feel so the fact that it wasn’t comfortable for a nap was disappointing.

There are (still?) some FAs like that who really take pride in their job - you were lucky to have one on board. :tu:

Thanks for reporting back. Yeah, AY has saved so much on catering that many dishes are modest, to put it mildly. Which of the options did you choose?

I know precisely what you mean by mother hen, some of the older AY FAs are just like that, in a positive way. :tu:

When we being seated we noticed that one older FA was being really helpful to other passengers so we decided that she would be the one we would ask about our meals. She turned out to be so nice. I woke up about half an hour before the second service (unlike other airlines it was served almost three hours prior to landing) so she asked if I still wanted the main meal or it I’d prefer to go straight to breakfast but assured me that if I went for the main meal and was still hungry she would also bring me breakfast.

I had ordered a vegetarian meal, which actually was a vegan one since I didn’t get any dairy or eggs, which my husband got for breakfast. For his main meal he had the penne which wasn’t great. Maybe if he had ordered the fish the meal might have been better.

​​​​​​​This doesnt apply SIN flights. Dinner at 4am and breakfast before landing.

on LH J I allways ask them to save my dinner till later and I eat it midway through the flight, especially now that the asian flights are so long.

I over eat and drink at the lounges in HEL so this works very well for me. I have not tried this in PE or Y yet so not sure if it wpuld work in PE I am sure it wont work in Y but then again the plan is not to experience that on ay in the near future 😀😀

The meal concept on DOH-HEL (and I would assume other ex-DOH flights, too) is way off.

Right after take-off, when everyone has enjoyed a good breakfast in the lounge, they serve a full three-course breakfast.

4.5 hours later, when everyone is hungry, they offer… Well, I’ll just let the picture speak for itself. I should probably add some kind of a warning here, too, as the photo might shock you...

I understand that they don’t want to serve two meals on a flight that is less than 7 hours long. And when they still did that in January, it was a bit too much, I agree.

But they should retime the whole thing; offer a light snack after take-off, like a heated sandwich. And 2.5 hours before landing, a full lunch service.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...82be9ad84.jpeg
AY J breakfast DOH-HEL
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4d58adf3a.jpeg
AY J breakfast, dessert, DOH-HEL
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...eb958806f.jpeg
AY J second service, DOH-HEL
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...940599b25.jpeg
AY J second service, DOH-HEL

I will call your 2nd service picture and raise with HEL-SIN J breakfast (served noon-1pm Finnish time/6pm Singapore time, ...)

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...071d616d6.jpeg
There was 5 more blueberries and 10 more pieces of papaya. And 2 slices of reindeer.
But all in all, proper Y breakfast served in china.

worse than your 5£ supermarket meal deal.

Wow what the hell Topi?! Outrageous.

Last night ICN-HEL it was cart service in J, so second datapoint of such for me. Another, admittedly small thing, that makes the service seem less premium. Hopefully won't become the norm.

HEL-NRT
Options were chicken, fish and pork, so a good variety. As the pork-option was the only one offering potatoes, it was a given for me.


Grilled pork belly with roasted potatoes, chimichurri beans, mustard sauce

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8d4656d78e.jpg

All was good and tasty to me (I was able to fish the potatoe-salad out of the green pea purée) . I like the new table cloths, high quality look and feel to me.
Not a huge meal, but satisfying.


Pre-dinner drink, a GT. I liked the new glases for this. Also a nice touch with the berries, but they were frozen and didn't really have time to thaw and flavour the drink.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ef80516d4b.jpg






Child meal - meatballs and mashed potatoes

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5e07e61a64.jpg

I found it slightly challenging foodwise flying with mini-me. None of the standard-options felt adequte so we opted for SPML. MMB did not say what it would be, so I had to contact platsapp. Meatballs seemed a good option.
Mini-me loved the chicken starter and vegetables but only ate some of the meatballs. To me they looked like they didn't survive heating cabinett too well, mash dry and sauce disintegrated.
Bread was good (used as a butter-holder, ie you put the butter on the bread so your fingers don't get sticky while licking the butter off and leaving the bread).

She also got extra fruit on the side, a bowl of strawberries and blueberries. That was a nice touch.
1,5 cheese plate and a dessert closed the deal.

HEL-NRT, "Before landing" meal

The flight attendant was quick to point out it was a lunch "because it is lunchtime in Japan". It felt like she was pre-empting critique, like they've already gotten used to people asking "why is there no breakfast?"

The quiche was really not good. I wanted to eat it but left more than half of it. In retrospect, I would have preferred the kids meal!



Vegetable quiche with shrimp and potato salad and fresh fruits
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...40e1435f2c.jpg

Remove the quiche and what is left of this "lunch"?! Fruit and a side-salad.
The picures even lie a bit, the bowls are quite small. Compare with the butter pack to realise how tiny it all is.




Child meal
There is no option to chose the second meal, but once you select Child-meal, it will affect all meals.

Again, mini-me liked the chicken, but honestly it felt rather thoughtless that the second meal was basically made up of the exact same things as the main meal (chicken and mashed potatoes). Even the pre-packed bread was exactly the same that came with the main meal, but she was offered bread from the basket too, so some variety there.

On the plus side, the kids meal is actually more substantial than the adult meal. Still small bowls, but more of a lunch than the quiche-scourge.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...cb8bc274b9.jpg



While both meals were above a "snack-meal" I got worried that it wouldn't really last us. And rightly so, miss cranky-face appeared while still in the airport. Both immigrations and customs line were the really long in Narita at noon. Cianmon buns from the survival kit to the rescue!

NRT-HEL

This is a midnight departure with arrival in the early morning, and food service is dinner + breakfast.
Finnair did not publish the menue for this route (they seem to have decided to only publish menues on ex-HEL-flights) and also pre-order of options is not possible. I decided to not pre-order SPML but to see what happened.

As soon as I got onboard, I looked at the menue and saw that none of the options waweres kid-friendly. As I was pondering that, the purser came by and asked if I had any special requests for the flight. This was during boarding and not related to meal service at all, but I ceased the opportunity and mentioned that the menu wasn't really kid-friendly and the purser agreed. We had a look together and agreed one option would be better and she went forward to reserve it. We were on row 8 and I now felt assured we would get that even with their usual row-by-row approach.
Immediately after take-off, we got special service, had our tables laid and food served. At this point, no one else in the cabin had been given any service (not even the "op-uped" staffers). So that was a nice touch.

Rosemary chicken
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...09cebe383d.jpg
A serious "branch" of rosemary on top added a great smell to the meal - Even mini-me said it smelled so nice. A good meal.


The sides
I didn't nick the menu so I am not sure what the sides were. The lower dish compote was good, I only left the avocado pieces.

The top dish: Finnair seems to have a thing for peas, don't they?
The garniture on top was good to me, rest of the mozarell / pea / unknown purée creation wasn't for me and was left untouched.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e4acbbfd48.jpg


The cheese plate on the homeboud was not as good as on the outbound. A small piece of very dull cammenbert (plus something else I forgot) compared to a decent sized blue chese with bite on the outbound.
Desserts are really small, almost amuse-bouche sized. The green tea cake was as expected and didn't disapoint.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...28f92a8098.jpg



Breakfast was more of a full meal then second service on the outbound. It presented to contain bacon, but more like the cutlet style bacon and as such not very thinly sliced and quite dry.

Here another issue with the small bowls got apparent - to get a full meal into the small bowl, they really have to stuff it in. So there are potatoes and mushrooms in the bottom, a lid of several cutlet slices on top and then vegetables and tomato suce crammed in. It is like an IKEA parcel. Once you've open that small flat package and look at the contents, you can never make them goo back to be as small again...

Cramming it all together like that make the presentation poor and it also affected the taste and texture, like potatoes getting mushy and so on. So while the size of it was good, I still would only give it a medium rating.
I would also have appreciated a bigger fruit plate.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5afd0b46dd.jpg

AY132 SIN-HEL

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...839923644.jpeg
Menu

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...981ad9e01.jpeg
After departure

Drinks were distributed almost instantly after the seatbelt sign was switched off. Nice swift service for once. Sometimes they come with the meal.
GT doesnt have cranberries like someone had few days ago. Consistency?

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...00f8245a5.jpeg
Dinner

Opted for the chicken kofta. Appetizers were great like most of the time. Chicken and rice were pretty good, eggplant not so. For the amount of rice there could have been a 3rd ball.
All in all, pretty good dinner as expected from outstation. One tray service is also kinda... discussed before.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b77b7479f.jpeg
Dessert

Cheesecake for dessert. Solid B+ or maybe even A-.

Then we get to the disappointing part. Breakfast.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...eb7c1c781.jpeg
Sad sight in J

Breakfast is very sad in quality and size. Definately Y breakfast rather than J.
I think the quiches are actually catered from Finland as this would go with mine being just wet soggy pile of crap (frozen and heated to melt). Just my theory.

The quiche looks smaller than the Finnish ones as there is room for veggies, too. The Finnish quiche fills the whole miniplate.

That chicken main looks like something TK would serve in shorthaul Y.