Hello my name is Paul Stewart and I'm in Hong Kong and today I'm flying to
Helsinki with Finnair in their business class product. Now I initially booked an
Airbus A350 but I've since found out that's been changed to an Airbus A330
which is a bit of a disappointment but anyway let's see how it goes.
I'm a huge fan of the architecture here as it just seems to be much more open and lighter
which is a nice thing before entering a cramped metal can for the next few hours.
After skipping the queues, it was through customs and into the main terminal. As
Finnair are a member of the oneworld alliance, with a business-class ticket
you can visit any and all of the One World of business lounges. If you know
your gate you can check out which one is closer or alternatively go for a walk.
I jumped on board the train, which I really need to stress early operates in one
direction away from customs so you'll have to walk back the opposite direction
so need to consider this if you have mobility issues. First up, I visited the
Cathay Pacific The Bridge lounge which has a really nice quiet ambience as
well as a great views. Down one end is a barista where I snagged myself a cup of
coffee and a small snack while at the other end of the lounge there was a
fairly decent buffet.
There was also a bar where I snagged a coffee and attempted to be artistic with
my camera, and a fantastic view of a Cathay Pacific Airbus A350. There was
also this Cathay Pacific 777-300ER which I actually flew back to
Sydney in a week later and the video from that is up on my channel. After that
I took the travellator back towards the entrance to visit the Qantas lounge.
As this lounge is literally up a level above the public concourse, it's louder
although I personally don't mind the ambience of an airport with the chatter
of announcements and things like that. This lounge certainly feels much more
open but also provides a good view of the airport apron. As I've said before,
access to showers is one of the biggest perks of flying in business class. While the
actual flights from Sydney to London are around 24 hours, once you include traveling
to and from the airport and the layovers it ends up being 36 or 48 hours so the
opportunity to refresh yourself really makes the journey much more enjoyable.
I enjoyed this braised beef brisket and egg noodle soup, another cup of coffee
from the bar which got me in good spirits
and sat back and enjoyed the view. Now here is our aircraft, an Airbus a330 - 300
which will be taking us through to Helsinki. This route is usually flown by
the newer A350 and my return flight was on board one of those and i'll include a
link to that video in the video description below. And while I'm on the
topic of other videos, feel free to check out my channel and subscribe for many
more similar videos. I'm also on instagram and facebook where I post up
some of my most favourite aviation photos and latest news. I'd also love to
hear from you about your thoughts on Finnair's very minimalist
livery. it's literally the airline's name and a big F on the tail. I don't mind it
and I suppose it's pretty distinctive and difficult to confuse with anyone
else I guess. I had had enough lounging around and took off to the departure
gate to get a few better views of our bird for today's ten and a half hour
journey. After a bit of a delay, we boarded this rather interesting business
cabin and I say that because there's several different types of seats in
business class and I'll attempt to explain them. On the left-hand side of the plane,
they alternate between twins and their single throne chairs. The middle seats
are old twins and then on the right-hand side, which is where I'll be sitting,
there are singles but with alternating ledges between the aisle and on the
window side. I'll run through my seat 6L a little more detail. On the left is the
in-flight magazines and safety cards etc spot and down below those is a handy
spot for your shoes. Then there's a reasonable sized foot recess and the
TV touch screen which really struggled in direct sunlight and I'll talk more about
that afterwards. Next to me was a pretty large ledge and the seat adjustment
buttons. Out of here appears the fold out table which was reasonably sized.
Hidden under this was the in-flight entertainment remote and there were
decent quality noise cancelling headphones. Now as I continue on, there
was there's power plugs and an adjustable reading lamp and up above
those were individual air vents and outside was a great view of the wing and
the general electric CF6 engine.
Champagne was brought around and served in these rather unique looking glasses.
now here's the amenity kit which seemed fine and I'll be giving that away to a
subscriber with more details of that later in the video. They also provide
slippers which is often overlooked in business class as they're much easier
to slip on for trips to the bathroom then going back to your regular shoes.
And just before we back out let's have a look at the in-flight entertainment
which I'm afraid was fairly average. Now the biggest problem was the glare from,
well, any light. I had to close all the window blinds to take this bit so
obviously these windows have to remain open during taxing and take off so you
really couldn't see anything on the screen at all. The screen was also
only average in size and the English content was fairly limited. One feature I
did really love, though, was the ability to skip the ads.
Ads are now becoming the norm on flights and like in the cinema I kind of feel like
you're already paying off and shouldn't really be subjected to a minute or two
of ads before everything you watched but I guess that's only a minor problem and
maybe I'm just be a delicate petal. We eventually backed out and took off
to the runway. Hong Kong always provides a great views for av geeks and
while Cathay doesn't quite any of the new passengers 747-8s, they have a
fleet of 14 -8 freighters which I reckon look pretty great and seem fairly
popular so hopefully production will continue
for a few more years to come.
After spinning around and heading towards Finland we got a hazy view of
Central Hong Kong which I usually really enjoyed visiting though this time there
was a lot of political unrest so I stayed at the airport hotel.
a wet towel was brought around followed by a bottle of water
now one slight criticism of the ledge is that there's no ridge so your objects
can just simply slide off although the epic views outside of eastern China made
up for these design flaws. If you've seen my Finnair A350 video you'll know that
I'm a fan of the cocktails and well this flight was where I discovered them.
First up was a blue sky and the amuse-bouche was a scallop with sesame ... something
and as you can tell I'm not a real foodie, followed about what Australians
call an entree. It was a roasted duck and tasted fine.
next up and this is what Jeb Brooks taught me is what Americans call an
entree, which is our main course and was roasted atlantic cod which was quite
minimalistic again but tasted fine. This was washed down with a glass of
champagne and then for dessert I had some Tawny port. This was served with some
nibbles and finally just before settling down to do some work I had a cup of
coffee and a fruit salad. I'll also post up full menus at the end of my video for
those who want the full details.
the journey continued through central-eastern China and eventually we reached
Mongolia which I must admit I didn't actually know much about other than the
when three middle-aged men visited there recently on the Grand Tour.
I thought I might check out the loo up front which was showing his age but was
perfectly adequate the obvious highlight being the great view although don't
forget to lower the sunshade for your own privacy!
when I returned to my seat the Northern Lights, sort of, were displaying and,
speaking about those, check out my A350 video where the interior lights are much
more modern and make for a pretty cool show. Since it was a long flight during
the day I thought I might work down the list of signature cocktails. Next up was
a double bill berry which tasted dangerously good. This was followed by
another one and more staring out of the window. There's also a little self-serve
bar in the galley with a few nibbles although the crew kindly prepared some
Vietnamese noodles which they also offer as snacks during any stage of the flight.
They also offer sandwiches, fruit and other sweets according to the menu.
And this was followed up by another double bilberry
although I actually asked them to modify it and reduce the liquid content so I'm
assuming this was just a single bilberry. The landscape over western mongolia was
really quite arid but still beautiful in its own way from a 38,000 feet
In an attempt to make myself look cultured and educated to strangers on the
Internet, here's a very subtle shot of me watching
a documentary about something, a blue planet number two, I presume, not sure if
that means it's Mars... and having coffee almond apple cake and a cinnamon muffin
As it was a day flight I didn't really need to sleep but here's my seat in the
fully flat position. it was perfectly soft although the leg
room became a little tight when it was down flat. And for a light meal just
before our arrival into Helsinki I had this braised beef with a roasted
garlic and pasta. There was also some fruit and a bilberry mocktail and they all tasted fine. that was removed we started a descent
After that was removed, we started our descent into a rainy Helsinki Airport. I might quickly add that there is Wi-Fi
onboard although I had to pay for it which is unfortunate as business
passengers get 60 minutes for free on the A350. Anyway I was too tight to pay
for it and figured it's nice to have a bit of a break from social media for a
few hours. Now Finnair are aggressively targeting
Australia with cheap business fares through to European destinations so I
know a lot of you will be interested to know how the flight went. Well overall it
was perfectly fine and great value. In fact it was quite literally half the
price of Qantas through to London via Perth. The seat was showing its age, but was
perfectly comfortable and unless you're sitting on the left hand side you'll
have direct all access and a window view in every seat. The TV screens really do
struggle in direct sunlight rendering it useless really for as long as a window
shade is open and to be honest this is a reasonably big drawback but unlike the
new A350, it does come with individual air vents and the cabin was a nice
comfortable cool temperature which is how I figure it should always be since
it's always going to be easier to warm up with a blanket if you're too cold
rather than a lose heat if you're already too hot. The food and drink was
fine, nothing amazing, but not bad and came with reasonably sized portions.
as well as regular drinks that were topped up by the great crew. Other than
the seat, a major part of the business class experience is the crew and I had a
great one. They were very friendly and engaging and the meals were served and
removed promptly and on a single occasion I had to call the call bell, it was
answered really quickly. And finally, the amenity kit give away. To enter, make
sure you click thumbs up, subscribe and comment below including the text
(Finnairgiveaway) in brackets and 30 days after this videos published
I'll randomly select a winner and mail it out. I hope you've enjoyed the video
and don't forget to check out my other two Finnair videos on board an
A350 and an A320 on my channel. thanks for watching and I'll see you
another time.