Courmisch

I have flown for actual business purposes an Finnair flight with 0 J rows, HEL-NCE.

Or maybe it was entirely business class, given the Finnair business class sign at the front

Justinus

mhle

I was booked to HEL-FCO-HEL next week by a customer and when I go to view the booking, it shows that I am seated at the Seat & Meal section. Are there any updates on what is included regarding food? Can I see somewhere which food option was booked for me?

FordYaris

If they did not say that they gave you meal: be prepared for the eventuality of being just seated there. I had AA-AY combo where I was randomly seated in the seat & meal section for LHR segment. I did not get food.

But I did get to enjoy SSSS in Heathrow which also blocked the OLCI and thus probably contributed into the seat assignment.

seldomrfly

Happend to me a few weeks ago. No food. Nothing at all. Except that LHR check-in agent was a bit confused. He was talking to his colleague about "waiving it". I suppose it was the lack of payment for my Seat&Meal that had to be waived at check-in. I told him that AY CS put me in the seat, because I wished to sit in front part of the cabin. (I had previously called CS and had them choose seats for me while my MMB was locked due to waitlisted upgrade)

mhle

When I review my booking at the Finnair website, it does state that my seat includes a meal, but I cannot find any further details. The booking confirmation that I got from my customer's travel agency did not include too much details on the reservation. In the possible scenario that I end up getting a meal, I am still interested if anyone knows that kind of meal that is?

on22cz

aapee

I selected one of the Seat and Meals seats during OLCI on my previous HEL-LHR fligh (there was no payment step). After that the booking mentioned a meal, but it was not served on the flight. Didn't expect one, tbh.

mhle

On the reservation page, my booking states "Seat 3C, incl. meal". However, I cannot find a place where I could select the meal or see what possibly already has been selected for me. As the flight to Rome is an early morning flight, I don't care too much, will have breakfast in the lounge and then see what happens (with low expectations on anything). Thank you all for the input.

mhle

Reporting back from this. Although my seat had been pre-booked on the seat & meal section and the reservation page stated "Seat 3C, incl. meal", no meal was included. I don't know how the seat was booked from that section, as the booking was done by my customer's travel agency. As I was expecting that this is a probable outcome, I had a good breakfast in the lounge. Otherwise good flights with really nice cabin crews, nothing to complain.

HJP

mhle

I was not able to select the meal in MMB. If you managed to do that, I expect that you will get some food.

seldomrfly

If you are able to do that it is promising.
I was also put on a Seat&Meal by CS, but not charged for it. I was never allowed to choose any meal. Didn't get any meal either.
However, check-in agent in LHR seemed to notice that I had a unpaid seat&meal seat. He "waived" it.

Markonen

Just returned from TFS with Seat&Meal both ways.

I have to say that the implementation baffles me. First of all, the food is different that the regular pre-order meals. Not better or more "high end" in any way, just different dishes. This clearly added much complexity during service; at one point the FA remarked that they had 9 different meal types loaded. This seemed to be something the inbound service couldn't really afford–the night flight from TFS gets a ton of pre-ordered meals and clearly the crew was swamped.

Second, there is only one dish per meal type (fish, meat, vegetarian or kids meal) whereas the regular pre-order meals have two options to choose from. This means that you are likely to have the same food both ways, which is boring at best.

Third, it's catered separately in its own catering containers. This was especially silly with the toy that's part of the kids' meal. My son was the only child with a Seat&Meal kids' meal, and so his one small toy travelled in style–a dedicated 40x30x30cm aluminium galley box.

Overall, I really don't understand why this is not just a package price deal for the regular pre-order meal, seat selection and priority security. Why it needs to affect the service delivery at all is beyond me – it must add to the implementation cost tremendously. The only theory I can float is that they plan to differentiate it more down the line: a short haul premium economy product?

FlyingFinn

Or maybe just experimenting with various styles of extra services before making a decision on which one(s) to go forward with?