Andaman

Yeah and pretty good availibility it seems. Also ex-ARN/CPH.

oliver2002

Like on queue, Topi Manner confirmed that the 4Y wetlease deals ends with the W22/23 season. AY needs their A359 and will not lease A330 out. Oh well.

https://www.aero.de/news-44277/Finna...ver-endet.html

OH-LGG

Confirmed where?

TPJ

I recall QF and OZ had the same 'hard' code-share between SYD and ICN - on OZ metal in C, QF had the right hand side and OZ had the left hand side and all the middle seats. So the right hand side was mostly occupied by Caucasians and left hand side by Asians (with me normally being the only Caucasian on the left hand side)

ffay005

In Oliver2022's link, a spokesman for Eurowings states that the deal with AY will end when the summer schedule starts.

OH-LGG

Yes I can see it but is Topi working as 4Y spokesman?

oliver2002

My bad, Topi said something in 2022, which the Aero.de guys quoted in the article. They obviously double checked with the 4Y spokesperson.

ffay005

Greetings from ARN-DOH! The process at ARN felt a lot less chaotic than last summer when I flew AY to LAX but nevertheles, not very nice. They wanted to cram everyone into a small holdin pen an hour before boarding (but of course there was nothing to prevent you from staying outside untl boarding actually started).

Entering the gate area, I was up for an interrogation. The gate agent did not recognize my self-printed BP. ”Is this all you have”, she asked, and started typing away on her computer. Am I flying back to Sweden? When? Do I have a visa? Do I have a hotel booking? Can I show the hotel booking? It took a while and then she produced an airport-printed BP.

Boarding strated at 14:41 and was for J pax only. After two minutes, they started boarding everyone else. No groups.

Y is rather full. In J, there are only 14 pax, me being the only AY pax. All other AY seats are empty. The usual AY amenities are provided, including the memory foam pillow! Amenity kit, slippers 0.5 L water bottle etc.

Fueling was still going on during boarding, which might be the reason why the J FAs where hiding in the front galley, chatting away. When fueling was completed, they emerged with PDBs and before take-off the Swedish purser came to give a Lumo talk. So far the cabin crew seems friendly, no complaints at all. The welcome announcement was given in English and Swedish, followed by Finnish, as apparently at least one of the cabin crew is Finnish. Cockipt crew are from Finland, too, and greeted us in all three languages.

Boarding was completed at 15:03, 7 min before STD, but then they had some problems with one of the slides and when that was cleared, another problem with the air conditioning, so in the end, we took off 30 min after STD. Flying time is estimated at 6 hours, so we are expeting an on-time arrival.

The trilingual (Eng/Fin/Swe) menu is not the same as ex-HEL.

Starters:
Grilled chicken with creamy potatoes, pickled radish and ramson oil AND
Marinated fennel with pickled shimeji mushroom with redwood sorrel

Main courses:
Beef cheek with potato and celeriac pure and blue cheese sauce OR
Baked salmon with blue mussel and crayfish, Jerusalem artichoke and cream sauce OR
Pea risotto with celeriac and Brussels sprouts

Desserts:
Cheeses AND/OR
Blackcurrant mousse OR
Chocolate tartlet with apple

ffay005

The meal was served 50 minutes after take-off.

The starters are strange. A bit like when an African airline wants to serve western cuisine but they don't really know what to do with the ingredients, so they end up serving cold shrimp on a bed of grated carrots. Edible, yes, but strange. One plate had a few slices of cold, grilled chicken breast with cold mashed potato. The other one came with grated cabbage soaked in vinegar as well as shimejis and a reddish mousse, soaked in vinegar.

I chose the salmon, and the dish I got consisted of a minuscule piece of fish and lots of different kind of vegetables. It was good, though, and not overcooked.

The blackcurrant mousse and the chocolate tart were good.

intuition

LOL!
And so true. Chinese carriers do the same.

And remove the shrimp and you get a full fledged Finnair sustainable meal!!

ffay005

Midflight, a fruit plate was proactively offered (or actually a glass with fresh fruit) and appreciated. I also asked for some Fazer chocolates, which were available.

1 h 50 min before landing, the second meal was served. The menu read:
Quiche Lorraine with roasted chicken, pumpkin, salad and fresh fruits.

The pie was called Quiche Lorraine in English and Swedish, but ham pie in Finnish. I failed to find any ham in there, though. I would say cheese and Bell peppers, but who knows. Then there was a plate with two slices of the same grilled chicken that was served with the first meal, but this time it came with two cherry tomatoes and some barley and vegetables. And a plate of berries and fruit.

There is definitely enough food for a 6+ hour flight, but it surprises me that the exact same concept is used on flights of 13 hours or more.

The crew is friendly and attentive. Instead of ”katotaan”, their catchphrase is ”Det fixar vi!” with a smile. They are all based in Stockholm. I was under the impression the base would be in DOH.

nordic

Pork on a Middle-Eastern flight seems very odd so I hope there was no ham in the Quiche.

nordic

So there was nothing recorded in Arabic?

ffay005

Good point, I didn't even think about that! Not that there were any Qataris on the flight. J was western ppl only.

Nothing.

AY and QR seats received the same service, no difference there.

I walked through the plane and counted about 60 empty seats in Y, many of which were Comfort seats and 3 of which were PE seats. Those lucky to get a PE seat also received an amenity kit.

The FAs told me that all AY arrivals use stands at DOH. When we landed a minute past midnight (STA 23:50), we parked next to the other two AY planes that had already arrived. There was a dedicated J bus, never seen that on AY before. However, AY arrivals cannot use the QR J arrivals service.

I was in my hotel 55 minutes after touchdown (by taxi).

I would say the flight exceeded my expectations. The J cabin was calm, the FAs were great and there was enough food.

Also bear in mind that my cash upgrade cost 126 EUR (and I was the only AY J pax on this flight).

ffay005

AY ARN-DOH J meal



AY ARN-DOH J dessert



AY ARN-DOH J midflight snack



AY ARN-DOH J second service

Here are the pictures from yesterday's flight.