Touring Helsinki Airport

Just a small correction: Finnair flies to Toronto during the summer. Single class 757 though.

@ Brian -- All economy 757? Ouch! Post correct, thanks.

Every time i see that Brad Pitt Chanel ad, reminds me of the hilarious SNL parody.

Yea, not my idea of an enjoyable flight!

I suspect that a good amount of the traffic is of VFR nature—many Finns (& the Baltics) in Ontario.

Finnair typically has excellent business class fares from NY to Asia via HEL. They may require a long layover and, on the return, an overnight (depending on destination), but they are very reasonable.

The Almost Home lounge looks good, but I hate chairs that do not have arm rests.

C'mon, lucky! ZRH and MUC are awesome airports, even if they are not the most important in Europe.

All airports in Norway, including OSL, have free wifi. Same thing for Copenhagen and Stockholm, but you have to register an account first.
I think it might be a Scandinavian thing?

How does it compare to MUC or ZRH - both of which have slim minimum connection times.

Quote: I do find Finnair’s strategy a bit bizarre — they fly to over a dozen cities in Asia, while they only fly to one city in North America year round.

But most people originating in the US would prefer to fly west for Asia right? And the US Europe market is much more difficult, there are so many hubs in northern Europe, each with many connections to the US...

So in a way it makes sense for them to focus on the Europe Asia market. Less competition, a large feeder network to get the pax to HEL for their flight to Asia, and like you said, an easy airport to transfer. When not living in one of the hub cities in Europe, there is no reason to not use AY over say, AFKL or LH/LX/OS.

Not hard to be better than LDN or FRA when only about 15 milion passengers travel through helsinki, sorry lucky, i usually love your blog but this is just not in any way a good comparison!

I have seen the Finnair plane in Miami, but must be a seasonal thing. Strange cause there are lots of Swedish and Danish tourist who travel down here.

Kastrup (Copenhagen) and Arlanda(Stockholm) are great and efficient airports also, and well connected to the city via train/bus service.

Personally I hate Heathrow, everything goes wrong in that place.

One remark from my side, working for a Swedish company: people from the Nordic (and I simply include the Fins here) use to travel to Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Laos) for their winter vacation. Thats for example why Thai flies a 747 ARN-BKK which is constantly full between Jan-Mar. I guess thats why Finnair has many destinations in the East and not so much in the West.

Also, me living in Western Europe, Id never fly East to HEL first only to fly 2h West again to the US.

@10 / ben,

15 million passengers makes it the 29th largest airport in Europe, ahead of e.g. GVA, HAM or NCE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_Europe

Finnair's strategy makes actually quite a lot of sense when you think about it. HEL is just about on a perfect spot on a great circle route from Europe to Asia. Finnair connect lots of "secondary" cities in Europe to Asia with one(and fast) connection at HEL, and vice versa of course. Most of Finnair's customers are actually from Asia, travelling to Europe.

@Jorge and lucky
I flew this morning from CPH to ARN. both are awesome airports!

Hang on... Just reassure me you're not an American who is mocking proper pronunciation of words... talk about American ignorance and arrogance!

A little update: Finnair now use A330 to Toronto, still a seasonal summer service. This year they have 15 destinations in Asia, in coming winter their busy charter service to Phuket and Krabi in Thailand will change to scheduled service.

"I do find Finnair’s strategy a bit bizarre — they fly to over a dozen cities in Asia, while they only fly to one city in North America year round."

Helsinki Airport has among the shortest minimum connection times of any airport in the world. The minimum connection time for domestic to domestic connections is just 20 minutes, for domestic to international connections it’s just 30 minutes, for international to domestic connections it’s just 40 minutes, and for international to international connections it’s just 35 minutes.

I was in Helsinki last weekend and was really impressed by the airport, Finnair’s offering of product and route network. Walking around the airport and seeing people who / hearing voices from across Asia, Australia & New Zealand made me realise just how popular Finnair & connecting through Helsinki is. Finnair fly to Helsinki fom over 60 European destinations.

Helsinki Airport has among the shortest minimum connection times of any airport in the world. The minimum connection time for domestic to domestic connections is just 20 minutes, for domestic to international connections it’s just 30 minutes, for international to domestic connections it’s just 40 minutes, and for international to international connections it’s just 35 minutes.

Helsinki Airport is compact with all operations under one roof with no queuing at immigration for many different passport holders (not just EU) by using e-gates. They’re easy to use – using them I got the green light more quickly than I’ve ever done when using e-gates at various UK airports.