Finnair Business Class: London Heathrow to Nagoya via Helsinki, returning from Tokyo

Having, happily, used Finnair's business class service to Asia on multiple occasions over the last few years, this set of flights to and from Japan was a somewhat dispiriting experience. In fact, I've rather fallen out of love with Finnair.

These flights were a let down on three main counts:

• The "enhanced" catering experience
• The new lie-flat seats
• The Air France business class experience.

In the past, Finnair's business class food has been pretty decent; unexciting but generously portioned and not completely annihilated by the onboard cooking process. Earlier in the year, as part of the airline's (generally perplexing) brand refresh, a new menu, apparently more representative of traditional Finnish cuisine, has been adopted.

I'm not sure there are even many Finns who would consider this a wise course of action – the nation is not, traditionally, renowned for it's food. Predictably, Finnish food, as interpreted by airline catering firms, is vile. Mercifully, flights to Japan carry a selection of onigiri rice balls, so complete starvation was avoided.

Most of Finnair's A330s and their oldest A330s have an angled lie-flat business class seat which I've always found spacious and perfectly comfortable. A handful of newer A330s have a fully lie-flat product, but there seems to be no firm plan to retro-fit the new seat across the whole long-haul fleet.

This should be viewed as a blessing.

The new, flat, Finnair seat is the same basic model that Swiss have now standardised on and which I used shortly after it was introduced. Back then, I didn't find the seat particularly comfortable but thought this was because I was in an especially bad seat; the layout means that some are far more private than others.

I was mistaken.

My Finnair flight to Nagoya was operated with the new business class and I was able to reserve one of the choicest seats, 4A, a single with large consoles at either side. After two flights on two airlines, I have to conclude that this style of business class seating is to be avoided. First of all, although the seat is lie flat, with an advertised pitch of sixty inches, it actually feels very claustrophobic. The shell of the seat in front is very close to you and makes it difficult to move freely unless the seat is in the fully upright position; it's not possible to step off of a reclined seat for a mid-movie toilet break.

The seat is also incredibly narrow at both the shoulders and feet. For somebody with broad shoulders and large feet, this renders the seat virtually useless in the flat position. The shoulders are so narrow that I had to lie on my side, but the tunnel which my ankles and feet were supposed to slot into was so tight that they didn't really fit – it almost feels as if you've been tied down (I assume...) and is, frankly, deeply unsettling.

The return journey, from Tokyo, was worse still. Not content with having two business class products within it's small fleet, Finnair have leased two of Air France's most decrepit A340s, with no real effort to refurbish the aircraft, save for seat covers in the house colours. On it's newest aircraft, Air France doesn't offer a business class seat that can be considered remotely competitive; the product on this old bird was positively awful. The seat is angled lie-flat, but has no footrest; something I've never come across before. Any attempt to recline the seat results in a fairly rapid slide towards the floor. The entertainment system is also a throwback to another age.

On the other hand, the food loaded in Tokyo was far more palateable than the Finnish extravaganza served on the outbound journey.

Uncomfortable seat and lacklustre entertainment I could almost accept – all airlines find themselves having to add sub-optimal capacity at some points. What was truly unforgivable about this flight was that the aircraft was filthy – I doubt it's seen a J-Cloth since it left Airbus in Toulouse. Every nook and cranny of the seat housed grime, dirt and the detritus of previous passengers.

It's really not good enough – particularly as Finnair have also lost the price advantage they once offered on routes to Asia. I'll not be travelling anywhere via Helsinki in the foreseeable future.

Comments

[cp]

I can' subscribe to this.
New seat HEL-BKK, perfect for sleeping for me (1,80, 80kg), old seat on way back a pain in the ...
"Finnish" food nothing to write home about, but decent.
FA not the youngest, but very attentive and caring.
Price about 30% below Thai Air, good enough for me.

[Business Class to London]

Doesn't sound like you had a very good experience. Sorry, hoping you get a better one next time.

[Business Class to London]

I wish I could fly to London on business class. I live in America so I'll have to save up for the experience.

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