I certainly hope we are in the typical "enthusiast forum over dramatisation" mode and the reality will be closer to way things are right now, but it's not looking great. There's a clear LCC mentality going on in the details and even if AY doesn't go in all the way, it's way too expensive of a carrier for inconvenience and stressing over penny pinching.

And in few months we've gone from champagne in Business to "no bags for you!" (Seinfeld!) so there's a good chance there's more to come.

:p Just imagine Finnair fliers have to start looking at TikTok videos of jamming all the clothes inside the neck pillow like with Ryanair and Vueling

I did not know only AY flew angled flats at the time. Also, I must’ve missed that most carriers had Wi-Fi capable of streaming while AY had nada.

As far as your IFE comment, Y did not have PTVs but J had DVD players.

Ah yes, todays Schengen Lounge is a peaceful haven with excellent catering.

I truly hope someone at AY reads your love letter. If my memory serves me right, you used to fly AY a lot, like, a lot lot. Like over a million points a year, and always in J. They should be ashamed to lose a customer like you. And they should really be asking what they did to lose you.

Can I ask what your typical flying patterns are? For me, and many Finland-based FTers, the main problem is (and AY knows this too well and takes advantage of it) that there is very little competition if one values nonstop flights.

The way things are going, I would be more then ready to jump ship. But where would I go? I am already booking (mostly) TK when going places that AY won't take me. And even when AY could take me, for longhaul I am looking at other options, but there aren't many. QR prices have gone through the roof and TK schedules to America don't work.

Oh, so now you're benchmarking it to service by other carriers at the same time instead of AY 15 years ago? Well that changes everything, because as we all know, other European carriers serve champagne and lobster in shorthaul Y and most certainly don't have limits on carryon size or charge for seating...

Yes, according to the email I received from AY.

I guess the same is true about Silver and the free check-in-bag with the cheapest ticket. The point is not to have such a bag for every trip but it is nice to have the option if one realizes he will need it when packing for the trip. Now this will be gone too.

Not sure if you are aware, but Finnair has made it very difficult to burn your points; increasingly difficult.
What many find frustrating, that AY is removing all the "fun" from flying - and instead - make it a miserable and stressful experience.

I will miss the flexibility of the heavy bag, I wish they would offer Plats and Lumo the choice of 2x23kg or 1x 32kg atleast as I hate taking two bags.

The cabin bag is a problem but I guess I need to stuff my laptops into my Baubax jacket and that will lighten my luggage by 12kg 😀

Now I need to either find a ultralight carry on or a super roomy backup since the rollers weigh 3kg allready

Aaand, speculating the next move…….

Was it some 5ish years ago they introduced Lumo and made other levels easier to get. At that time it was perhaps a way to respond with attractiveness to increasing competition (over Asia), who knows…so this is one competition tool, lotalty program. And they play with it. So now is the time to drag down on those ”too good bennies” regarded unsustainable by AY.

So next, ”we have listened to customers who say the silver card has become not wanted”…and ”also harmonize the lotalty levels according to oneworld structure”, so ”we are renaming the Gold cards as Ruby, Platinum as Sapphire and Lumo as Emerald. Silver is no longer used”

cha cha cha


OT fun fact, this thread rrecorded faster 100 posts than the ”no more champagne”-thread. So, champagne was not a biggie :D

Got home from work and had a chance to read everything in detail.

Soon one will need a PhD degree to understand the complex allowances and charges for airline tickets. And I consider ourselves savvy travelers.

This is all rubbish. Simple as that.

I‘m happy if they want to be more strict with no status people trying to take their household onboard on a Light ticket because they don‘t want to purchase a Classic ticket or extra baggage.

However, I am not ok to pay extra to take a few kgs over 23kg as a loyal Platinum member flying mostly on Flex tickets... I wonder if pooling is possible: Check 1 heavy bag instead of 2x lighter bags. Probably not.

The points upgrade price increase was expected but still sucks. Thankfully I earned and burned and I‘m not hugely impacted by this.

The whole marketing höpöhöpö about „smooth experience“ is what annoys me most. Nothing about this is smooth. Nothing. To the contrary, now I will need a handysheet readily available to figure out what I can or cannot bring onboard on a given ticket type. And the boarding process will even become a bigger zoo.

And you need to do the same research and have the same cheat sheet with you for every airline, as all these changes and restrictions are different from airline to airline. I would like to spend my time better than researching centimetres and grams for each airline separately. :mad:

They were weighing hand luggage at HEL on Friday for my flight to ARN. At the gate they had the sizer and a small scale thing.

To many cities in the America’s, I’m seeing decent ~$2000 J fares on SK, LH, LX, BA and even DL ex-HEL and ARN. Add a few hundred more to the West Coast. TK is indeed pretty limited ex-HEL, it’ll only work to MIA, MEX and CCS if that’s your thing. I wish they brought back the 6AM flight ex-HEL.

Cant u see what u write? :D

Consensus is: you are allowed occasional booty calls.
just as in real life, this how you get reminded that the rosy memory is false and the bad things dominate.
CLosure and moving on some time requires such mishaps!

What I really don t understand why doing all this in small steps in that little time, make a real cut and become a LCC with a hub. But pretending you are still a legacy carrier while only need to do some "small" alternations doesn t work to me.

I was ready to jump the boat when the service decreased, with the new changes it will effect my purse directly, so even with status I will have to add about 400€ to each journey, and going on awards to Asia it will be close to 600€ (since it is always the two of us), all of the sudden the difference to other carriers isn t there anymore. On my next planed trip to BKK Luftwaffe is even 800€ cheaper then AY, if starting in Berlin (with the same travel time), and if I use an alternative airport LX is still about 600€ cheaper then AY - these guys in Helsinki must be very, very confident about their product and about the loyalty of the passengers.

But I really had the imperssion that AY is concentrating on high yield Y and PE pax instead of lure in J pax - they rather give an upgrade to a PE pax who already paid 1900€ for his ticket, and spoil him with the seat instead of delivering a J product which is so attractive that you don t have a problem with spending 3000€. I guess it is easier to get the PE guy.