NickP 1K

Finnair (AY) 836
From: London Heathrow 7:30AM
To: Helsinki Vantaa 12:30PM
A319
C Cabin - 7A:

(NOTE: Middle seat is narrowed and Window plus Aisle seat widened in the C cabin, seat pitch is acceptable and is the same as other airlines C product on Intra-Europe flights)

Got up nice and early from Central London today; caught the 5:30AM or so Heathrow Express to LHR. Got in aprox 15 minutes afterward to the T1/2/3 station. Walked to the T1 escalator area, past the British Midland and BA Economy check in morning backup to the BA counter (had to pickup a PAPER ticket? what are those??)

When picking up the ticket (sold under the BA 6036 flight number), the BA agent asked if I had any bags to check. Since I had none I got my boarding pass for this flight (and my return later that evening)

Went through T1 FastTrack, took under a minute or so to go through security and headed to the BA Lounge. Lounge is undergoing a refurb. Counter area seemed new, the rest of the lounge was it's same dated self. The new lounge refresh is supposed to be finished in Summer.

Go to Gate call made 45 mins before departure time. Boarding started 5 mins or so after I got to the gate.

Grabbed a paper in the jetway... Friendly greeting on-board. Nice and bright A319 - MUCH nicer than the last flights I had on AY which were on the MD80's. Since C looked empty (confirmed with the crew) took any seat to spread out as BA looked like the congreagated all the C class pax in the same 3 rows.

PRIOR to jetway closed, overhead LCD screens drop down showing Airshow. Push back on time, after push back I notice the LCD screens are showing a nose camera view... Seen this on long haul aircraft (e.g. CX) but never on a short haul A319. Line up for the runway, on this cloudy morning for a generally smooth climb out over Berkshire and the turn around towards the East/North East.

During climb out, crew comes by with hot towels and morning cold drinks (juices and water). Crew closes the curtains from Y to C (what a concept!) This is followed up a few minutes later with a hot breakfast consisting of:

- Fruit
- Breads w/Preserves and Butter
- Cheese Omelette with Spinach on the side and potatoes.
- Coffee/Tea/Juices

Crew came by every few minutes during meal service to ensure drinks were topped/refilled and bread would make multiple rounds.

After breakfast, read the paper, snoozed off for a little while.

Rest of flight was routine. Crew came by every 15 mins or so to check on all the C pax's.

Captain comes on 1 hour into the flight advises of on time arrival, weather, etc for Helsinki.

Short video programming comes on (no headsets) though - was some American sitcom likely in English Audio (can't hear) subtitled. Airshow returns after that.

Flight Crew starts the decsent to HEL. Nose camera turned back on. HEL is 3 degrees C. Snow still on the ground.

Nice touchdown, brakes hit hard on last 5 seconds or so to get off an earlier taxiway. At the jetway on time, however since we are in the non International arrivals area we get air-staired off the rear of the plain to come in by bus to the International Arrivals area.

From there to outside the bag claim (I had no bags checks) clearing immigrations took 5 minutes.

All in all considering this is an Intra-Europe flight I give this a 9 out of 10 overall... The stale BA T1 lounge and the lack of jetway arrival at HEL being the only dings.


[This message has been edited by NickP 1K (edited 04-04-2003).]

ORD Finn

Thanks for the report! It seems like you had a standard, good quality intra-Europe AY flight.

I guess it is quite likely that you will get bussed at HEL when you arrive from a non-Schengen country. A bit annoying but everything usually works pretty smoothly at HEL (except AY check-in sometimes...).

NickP 1K

Now the return; was originally on the AY flight at 7:20PM or so, got done with my meeting early so I got on the BA flight leaving at 5:20PM BA799


British Airways (BA) 799 [As AY5909 codeshare]
From: Helsinki Vantaa 5:25PM
To: London Heathrow 6:40PM
A319
C Cabin - 8F
(NOTE: Right side of cabin, hence all seats widened in C class. Middle was free along with the aisle seat on my row. )

Got a Taxi over to HEL airport early since my meeting was done early. I already had my boarding pass issued on the 7:30PM flight when I left LHR(this is where OneWorld shows it's style - they can ISSUE boarding passes for later flights on partner airlines!) I went to the business class check in and asked if the 5:30pm flight had any seats. Handed in my pre-issued boarding card, got a seat - was told to go RIGHT thru to departures and to the gate - so no stopping by the Finnair Lounge.

Security took 2 minutes at most. Passport control took a few seconds and then right to the gate. The Finnair Beijing flight (codeshare with Air China) was about to board near our gate so we had a little bit of a busy gate area. Our inbound plane was a little late. Considering it had started snowing an hour or so earlier this was to be expected.

Boarding started 5 mins before departure time (late!). We all got on board - 2 boarding lines. Grabbed a paper as I got on board. Greeted by the BA crew and grabbed my seat. Since they had to turnaround this plane it a little quicker than expected - it showed. The floor had pretzel or other type of crumbs near my seat. The A319 in general looked like it was in good shape.

Crew comes by with hot towels after boarding is completed.

Since we had to de-ice (April 4th!) a few minutes were spent at the stand. Push back... now we're 15 minutes or so late, but I'm in no real rush.

After departure overhead LCD screens come on and Airshow is shown. Crew comes by with drinks... Since none of the wines interested me I went for the bubbly. Was given a pack of salt and vinegar pretzel pieces (not bad actually). Crew comes by a few minutes later with the meal service which consisted of:

- Salmon Pate type appetizer
- Various Breads w/butter
- A Mediterranean style Salad with a choice of Chicken or Prawns on a Skewer(I took the prawns) - comes with an olive oil/balsamic vinegar dressing
- Chocolate Mouse style cake with Rasberry sauce (was quite good)
- Coffee/Tea/Cold Soft Drinks/Wine came by for another round.

Crew came twice before the flight landed to check up on drinks, ets.

I was asleep for about an hour, then the seat belt sign comes on. Looking at the map we are on the approach into South East UK. Captain comes on and advises us that we will be routed to the west and turnaround to LHR. Airshow screens go back up... We arrive to a nice and hazy LHR ALMOST on time. Touchdown was at 6:45PM, 5 minutes late. 5 or so minutes to the gate area. Then another 5 waiting on a BD Airbus to pull out of the alley.

Off the plane for the 5-10 minute walk to immigration. That took a few seconds. Out through the baggage claim and into Terminal 1 for the walk to Heathrow Express

All in all a 7. Dinging BA for: Plane was dirty. Rough cleaning would have taken a few minutes. Dinging them also on the late arrival even though the flight crew insisted we would be on time. Most carriers into LHR are not that optimisitic on on times arrivals


[This message has been edited by NickP 1K (edited 04-05-2003).]

Bretteee

In regards to the dirty BA plane BA sometimes reminds me of British Railways.

sowalsky

I was on a similarly configured Intra-Europe Alitalia plane. Seat width was nice, and the scrunched middle seat made for nice storage of personal items. But the 33" pitch was abysmal.