Unveiled in early 2022, Finnair’s flagship AirLounge business class seat onboard its
widebody Airbus jets is a unique offering across the aviation industry. Indeed,
its perhaps the only long-haul business class product on the market that doesn’t recline.
Designed in collaboration with Collins Aerospace, the seat’s lack of reclining ability is most often
what you’ll read first in any review of the seat. This fairly ‘click-baity’ aspect is one
of a few noteworthy features you’ll experience with Finnair’s new signature premium product.
A member of the Simple Flying team was honored to be a guest for one long-distance service in
this new business class, with a flight from Singapore Changi to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.
Let’s take a look at the experience of spending nearly 14 hours in this new,
special and unique offering by Finnair.
But first, a little background on the flight.
With airspace restrictions brought about by current geopolitical conflicts,
this flight from Singapore to Helsinki can be up to two hours longer than pre-February 2022.
Now having to fly around Ukrainian, Belarussian, and Russian airspace, flight
AY132 is now often 13-and-a-half hours where it once was around 12 hours in duration.
Finnair’s service is the only direct connection between Helsinki and Singapore,
and operates on a daily basis with the Airbus A350-900. Round-trip flights in this class
of service currently sit between $4,400 and $5,500USD during off-peak times of the year.
For the traveler in this flight review, the full itinerary had them flying from Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, to Vilnius, Lithuania. The outbound portion of this trip was taken with Finnair as
well, but in economy class. You can check out that review by clicking the link in the description.
Connecting through Singapore Changi was simple and straightforward. With security screening located
at each gate, passengers are able to get off one aircraft and instantly explore the terminal or
head straight to a lounge. This is exactly what we did after getting off of the Malaysia Airlines
service from Kuala Lumpur. Our traveler headed to Finnair’s partner lounge at Singapore Changi - the
T1 Marhaba lounge located in the large shopping area between the airport’s C and D piers.
While we won’t discuss this lounge in great detail in this flight review, we can say
that it was loud, fairly packed, and quite busy during our visit. This detracted from one of the
main purposes of visiting a lounge, which is to relax in a quiet and relaxing environment prior
to flying. However, the food and drink available at this facility was of fairly good quality.
After a short time at the lounge, we headed to the gate for boarding.
Some airports don’t conduct any security screening for transfer
passengers while others funnel travelers through a centralized facility. However,
at Changi and many other airports across Asia, security screening is conducted at the boarding
gate. This is exactly what we encountered at gate C25 as we made our way closer to the aircraft.
Boarding was quick and easy, with the airline calling for Zone 1 passengers
first - including those seated in business class.
Assigned the seat 2L, our passenger headed to the separate jetbridge that led to the
front of the business class cabin. To our surprise, we found a passenger already seated
in this seat- and after being confronted, this individual apologized for apparently
misreading the seat numbers and confusing their premium economy seat at 9L for the
business class seat at 2L. We think it was an attempted self-upgrade, but what do you think?
Ultimately, once seated, travelers - including our reviewer - were offered a
welcome drink. In this case, they went for the airline’s signature blueberry juice.
Moving on to the cabin and seating, there’s just so much to cover with
Finnair’s new AirLounge seats by Collins Aerospace. These seats are a relatively
new offering and were designed with input from the airline and unveiled in early 2022.
In watching some of the airline’s promotional videos about their new cabins,
the theme that comes up over and over again is Nordic style and design.
Similar to Scandinavian design principles,
Nordic design - according to Finnair - is all about simplicity, comfort, and functionality.
Finnair delivers on this concept by offering a non-reclining business class
seat that has a slightly angled back. The seatback blends seamlessly with
the sidewall - creating a semi-enclosed space that some refer to as a cocoon-like structure.
Both the sidewall and seatback offer firm padding which seems to provide the perfect
level of firmness - not stiff and dense, but also not overly cushy and squishy.
One downside of this sweeping sidewall is that it
lacks an armrest for one side. While it’s not a dealbreaker by anymeans,
those who want to sit upright might be slightly irritated by this asymmetry.
The main buttons for controlling the space can be found on the edge of the
seat’s sidetable-armrest. This included a Do-not-disturb button, as well as buttons
to control the brightness of a reading light, as well as lighting in the footwell.
Meanwhile the remote control and USB A and C charging ports were found in a discreet
compartment beside where a passenger’s head would be positioned when sitting upright.
Down below and closer to the floor is a full AC port for charging larger devices
while the side-table features an extremely convenient surface for wireless charging.
So why would someone pay for a non-reclining business class seat for a long-haul flight
with a full-service airline? Well, the beauty of this novel design is that
passengers need only sink themselves down and extend their feet into the
deep and spacious footwell in order to get the lie-flat bed experience.
Where passengers would normally have their legs placed (while seated upright) is a
connecting section that can be extended into place with the push of a button.
With this section in-place, passengers can quite quickly turn their seat into a bed.
For our flight reviewer, this worked fine at first, but in trying to move back to an upright
sitting position, the mechanism or motor had issues, and thus required assistance from a flight
attendant. The problem was quickly solved but did arise once more during the flight. It would appear
that passengers might need to firmly push down on the section while also engaging the motor. It’s
less than ideal but hopefully is more of a one-off problem than a common issue with the seats!
One last note about the seating and space is that the width of these business class
pods appears to result in a loss of aisle space. While meal carts can still make their way through,
it seems like passengers will have trouble getting past one another. However, if it’s a deicsion
between aisle space and personal seat space, then the latter would be the obvious choice!
Indeed, shoulder space - either for sitting or sleeping - doesn’t
seem to be an issue at all - which can’t always be said of business class suites.
When it comes to inflight entertainment,
an 18-inch screen is your gateway to a plethora of movies, television shows, games, and music.
We found that in business class,
connection information is displayed in the system and is also personalized to
each passenger - something that is extremely nice to have in the case of a tight connection.
Just like our experience in economy class,
engaging the system’s moving map feature is a little sluggish. However, once in,
moving around the map is fairly smooth and comfortable. Again, just like economy class,
passengers are able to look out at the world with the A350’s external cameras - one being located on
the jet’s vertical stabilizer, and another on the aircraft’s belly behind the front landing gear.
The airline’s overview feature is another praiseworthy addition. Seemingly simple and
yet incredibly helpful, Finnair gives passengers an overview of their flight and the sequence of
services that take place during the time in the air. In this case, passengers are served
a meal after take-off, which is followed by an opportunity for inflight shopping,
and then an extended rest period. Then, just before landing, a second, lighter meal is served.
And so, speaking of food, let’s now look at what the
airline had to offer its business class passengers in terms of infight meals.
Passengers in this class were greeted with a menu located at their seat. This
provided a list of options for main courses, desserts, and beverages.
For the main course of the first meal, our traveler selected the quote-unquote “braised
beef cheeks with truffle potato puree and roasted vegetables.” This was accompanied by two side
dishes: bamboo prawns with coconut floss, and hummus with baba ganoush and tabbouleh salad.
After being given a hot towel, all of this food was enjoyed with a tablecloth
covering the tray with full-size plates and elegant and weighted
cutlery. A choice of warm bread was also offered with the meal.
Sadly, the beef was on the more dry side, and also a little tougher than would be
ideal. Redeeming the meal, however, was the delicious mashed potatoes. The side dishes
were quite tasty with the coconut prawns really showing off some local Singaporean flavors.
Finally, a cheese plate along with a coconut mousse was served for dessert. While our
full and satisfied reviewer declined the offer of both dessert options, they did,
however, get a close-up shot of the other offering - a grape tart with vanilla sauce.
Our flight reviewer isn’t too big on alcohol and thus opted for the
airline’s blueberry juice most of the time. However, the airline does offer champagne,
as well as several red and white wines, as well as beer spirits,
and cocktails - in addition to a standard choice of soft drinks and juices.
After the meal, it was time to sleep. The seat was converted for lie-flat
sleeping and an underlayer was put down. Our traveler found the
cabin to be quite warm and thus didn’t bother opening the packaged blanket.
On top of having a dark and comfortable environment to get some rest, sleep came
easy due to the late-night departure of the flight. In addition to being given comfortable
dark grey slippers, all business class passengers were provided with an amenities kit which included
a toothbrush with toothpaste, as well as an eyeshade, earplugs, lip balm, and face cream.
Woken up a few hours later due to thirst, our reviewer was reminded that the cabin
was warmer than he woud have liked while also being quite dry. Indeed,
the bottle of water provided in the storage compartment was definitely needed in the
middle of the night! The experience of cabin temperature and humidity
will certainly vary between passengers, so this isn’t really a fault of the airline.
For passengers who find themselves awake while others are sleeping, there’s the opton
of heading to the self-service snack bar. There, passengers will find a selection of sandwiches,
potato chips (or crisps), as well as candy and other light snacks. Our reviewer spent part of
the night watching a movie and was offered a fresh fruit plate by a flight attendant.
Despite this first stint of sleep being rather short, it came at a great time
as the aircraft was flying over the Indian subcontinent. Dozens of tiny villages could
be seen out the window of the A350, dotting the landscape like stars in the night’s sky.
The aircraft eventually flew over the massive city of Mumbai and the
shining lights of India’s towns and cities turned into the darkness of the Arabian sea.
While many travelers will either be seated away from the window,
or just not care about the view at night, it’s worth mentioning that
the A350’s conventional window shades made it possible to enjoy some beautiful night
views and low-light photography. We’re quite certain that if we were aboard a Boeing 787,
windows would have been locked to their ‘dark’ setting for much of the night.
Around this time, our traveler also tried out the inflight WiFi provided by the airline.
Business class passengers are entitled to one complimentary hour of connectivity
during the flight and are welcome to purchase more time if they so desire.
The internet was sadly quite slow and wasn’t even capable of sending a photo via a messaging app.
While this may have been due to the aircraft’s location in the world,
it’s less than ideal and is a quick way to burn up the free hour of internet on nothing at all.
Well, after six or seven hours of quiet time, the mood lighting in the aircraft
was gradually raised to gently wake up passengers for the second meal service.
Business class passengers were served spinach quiche with bacon and asparagus,
with a meat and cheese plate on the side. A plate of fresh fruit
also accompanied this meal while warm bread was offered again.
This meal tasted great and left our reviewer stuffed. This is one thing
to take note of when flying Finnair’s business class: You won’t ever go
hungry. From decently-sized meal portions to the additional offerings of bread and
light snacks - even the hungriest of passengers should be satisfied.
Shortly after the second meal service was
wrapped up, the flight landed and passengers were offloaded quickly.
In terms of final thoughts, we would say that the business class experience with Finnair’s
new AirLounge product is wonderfully comfortable, and would be well worth
the extra money on a long-haul service. Especially since Finnair also offers some
less expensive business class ticket options that exclude checked baggage and lounge access.
On the more critical side, we found the flight attendant call button
difficult to find. Located with the stowed-away remote control,
a call button would have been better positioned with the other seat controls.
The lack of an armrest on one side is another small thing but also worth mentioning.
As for service - the crew were professional and caring - and
lavatories in this cabin were also kept clean throughout the flight. Attendants
took every available opportunity to offer more food and drink to passengers who were
awake and took time to update passengers on tight connections closer to landing.
And, finally, while we would welcome a free basic messaging option for inflight
connectivity - it’s likely that those who really need internet will just go ahead and pay for it.
Our thanks again to Finnair for having us as a
guest to experience this new and special business class product!
So what do you think of Finnair’s newest business class offering?
Would you give it a try? Let us know by leaving a comment!