FlyingFinn

CPH-HEL is one of the few routes where AY has decently priced one-ways. You can get a Value one for like 70€.

Courmisch

Light starts at 87€ for HEL-CPH and 107€ for CPH-HEL. Not horrible, and certainly viable for a business customer, but Norwegian offers 59€ and 61€ for the same.

intuition

Yes, i also struggled to see any 70EUR fares.
N.b. oneway is only offered as valud, no light et al

Courmisch

Meanwhile... MU is code-sharing on HO. So that's now three Chinese carriers marketing direct flights between PVG and HEL. As if it was not bad enough to dance around the 0-earnings CA codes on AY

ffay005

Sichuan actually started their CTU-HEL-CPH route: Vesisuihkutervehdys vastaanotti Sichuan Airlinesin avauslennon Chengdusta Helsinki-Vantaalle | lentoposti.fi

Looking forward to experiencing them in ~2 weeks.

ffay005

Here’s my experience flying 3U aka Sichuan Airlines CPH-HEL in Y. It was a funny experience indeed.

Timeline
8:57 arrived at check-in queue
9:15 through security
10:05 boarding time printed on BP
10:25 boarding starts
10:35 first bus leaves
10:55 STD
11:14 ATD (pushback)
11:30 take-off
11:49 seat belt sign off
11:55 drinks (tea & hot water)
***
13:10 cabin prepared for landing
13:15 seat belt sign on
13:35 STA
13:43 touchdown
13:51 at the gate
13:56 in the terminal

The only way to check in for the 3U flight is to go to the check-in desk. I reached the desk about two hours before my flight, and there were 15 people ahead of me in the economy queue. The business class queue was empty. Five desks were dedicated to our flight, one of which was for J and Golden Panda Plat/Gold members and the rest for Y pax. One of the Y desks was unmanned. The J desk took pax from the Y queue, which was smart as the J queue remained empty.

I was prepared to show them my printed confirmation with ticket numbers etc., especially since I was unable to pull up my resevration on the airline’s website, but all they needed was my ID card, just like on any other flight. By the way, while I was carrying my passport, I didn’t need it at any point. Everyone was happy with the ID card, as should be.

There were surprisingly many Western pax, and their check-in process was very swift. For the Asian pax, check-in took much longer. While the agent didn’t weigh my bag, I saw them routinely weigh carry-ons. The weight limit is 5 kg and was, apparently, strictly enforced. A rollaboard would be fine sizewise, though, and they accept a small personal item + duty free on top of the allowance.

I enquired about a seat with extra legroom, and got 49C, an exit seat in the last cabin on this A330-300, registration B-5945. The agent provided me with a red slip stating exit seat requirements and asked me to keep it because they want to see it on board. Unsurprisingly, no one was ever interested in the slip.

I was also presented with a boarding pass and went on to security, which was very quiet. The 3U flight left from bus gate E109, a long walk from the main hall. There was a dedicated passport control that served a handful of new gates in the E wing, and it was deserted. The new wing was everything HEL isn’t: wide hallways, no shops and very few seats (okay, the last one’s common with HEL).

Boarding started with business class as well as Golden Pandas, however, no one understood the announcements and when boarding started, everyone just stood there without moving. Finally, they managed to convince some pax to board and soon they decided to disregard any complex announcements and just took anyone who deigned to approach the desk, panda or no panda. I was probably the tenth or so pax to board the bus.

I was greeted with a friendly ni hao at the aircraft door. I found my 49C easily, and the doll-like FA came to give me my exit briefing, a well-rehearsed ”you-are-sitting-by-the-exit-door-please-don’t-touch-the-exit-door-thank-you”. I don’t know if she understood what she said, but it sure didn’t sound like it. I then went on to ask how full the flight will be, and after doing this in three different ways, I finally gave in. We were not going to engage in a conversation today, and apparently her English teacher had been as good as my Sichuanese teacher. Oh, did I mention I never took any Sichuanese classes?

There was nothing wrong with the seat. A bit hard, perhaps, but it had good recline (with the seat cushion moving forward as one reclined) and huge amounts of legroom. As the flight turned out to be less than half full (with perhaps a quarter of the pax Western), I briefly test-sat a regular seat, too, and found it very cramped.

There was a blanket at every seat, but no pillow. No headphones were provided, but the IFE worked. There were some 50+ non-Chinese movies, many of which were Japanese or Korean. There was a wide selection of movies in English, too, but somehow they had managed to select mostly movies that no one has ever heard of, plus some old action movies. It was about as bad as I had anticipated. There was no wifi. The seat came with a USB port that charged my mobile phone really slowly.

The safety video took 8 minutes. During the Chinese part, the flight attendants stood in the aisle and gestured in a way that appeared to be sign language, perhaps. When the English part started, they quickly disappeared.

The announcements came in Chinese and English, and apart from the prerecorded ones, were a bit difficult to understand. I could make out that our flight time was going to be 1 hour and 30 minutes, though.

Once the seatbelt sign was off, we were offered tea and hot water. I asked if I could get some cold water and they brought me a cup of cold water with ice. Later, I went to the galley and enquired if they had any snacks. The FA I spoke to apologized profusely, said the flight time was so short and then gave me a pack of Chinese cookies (they were good) and another with something that could best be described as soft funnel cake.

They started to prepare the cabin for landing about half an hour before. This did not happen by turning on the fasten seatbelt sign as one might expect, but instead by making an announcement, by forcing the seatbacks upright, by folding the tray tables and by closing the lavatories. After this, they repeatedly opened the lavs for pax and then closed them, only to open them again at the request of a pax. After about five minutes, they finally turned the seat belt sign on, too, but the lav roulette continued.

Everyone was asked to leave the plane in HEL. As the flight was coming from a safe airport, we walked straight into the gate area at gate 45. While I continued to passport control, pax flying to CTU could do what they wanted, stay at the gate for boarding in about 60 minutes, or roam the terminal.

If I was to fly to CPH regularly, I would choose AY because it’s just so much easier. But this was an exotic experience, and that’s what I was looking for. For a brief moment, over the Baltic Sea, I was in China. Moreover, my AY flight the previous day had all the classics: a crying baby, an XXL pax next to me, a loud lady speaking over rows, cursing like a sailor. So in that respect, the 3U flight, with an exit seat, an empty seat next to me and large numbers of quiet (!) Chinese pax was actually a lot calmer. Here’s to hoping that those HEL-KEF 5th freedom flights will actually start one day…

WilcoRoger

Unique - having to go through passport control when coming from CPH.

Clydez

2pm landing at passport control, you may hit the asian flights arrival rush.

OH-LGG

Real FTer books immediate LHR after 3U so it's sauna and salad time in Platinum Wing.

ffay005

If it’s on time, or just a little late, no problem. Passport control was empty when I went there.

on22cz

Lumos fly 3U to CPH to enjoy sauna and salad before nobody understands them.

Courmisch

Hmm... isn't that a problem actually? Doesn't that allow pax to exit the Schengen member area without any due passport checks?

This looks like the Lille loop-hole all over again.

When for operational reasons, a Finnair intra-Schengen flight arrives or leaves at a non-Schengen gate, they always board passengers by bus from a Schengen bus gate.

lkrt

Pax exit Schengen area in CPH.

OH-LGG

This is why I missed my 3U HEL-CPH on first operational Monday 16SEP. Desk check-in is so 90's that I've grown out of them.

ffay005

If you scroll back to my brief report, you’ll notice that the plane leaves from non-Schengen gates at CPH, and there’s passport/ID control before you reach the gate.