Finnair's Brutal New "Business Light" Fares

Especially in these times... are they really projecting huge business class volume? I'm already seeing lots of "good" fares for this summer and even into autumn for Europe.

How do these fares interact with your Oneworld status? E.g., if you are Oneworld Emerald travelling on a basic fare, will you not still get the priority check-in/boarding etc that way? I guess maybe they're doing this to attract people who would usually fly economy so have no expectations of the extras, and are willing to pay a bit more purely for the onboard experience and comfort?

I wouldn't call these fares and conditions brutal.

Giving people a clear choice is surely a good thing.

Some people will be more than happy to pay €300 less for business class if it excludes things they don't need like checked bags. They aren't bothered about lounges or priority boarding etc

If you want checked bags then there are fares that include them. if you want a lounge most airports now have pay for lounges.

A lot of people don't collect miles so lower earning rates won't bother them.

What will matter is will status passengers get luggage and lounge access included in these fares due to their status or is there a status exclusion like BA has with their HBO fares where you don't get status bag allowances.

This is nothing more than an attempt by Finnair and the others to "up sell" business class tickets. Undoubtedly some people will gravitate towards the cheapest fare available, but many more will pay the up charge to get what is more or less traditional business class ticket.

It's not "unbundling". It's "up selling".

Another example of things to come lots pf smoke and mirrors for airlines to sell you less for more. As the hysteria of the Covid slows people are beginning to travel and the carriers are trying anything to recover and pay down debt accumulated during the shutdown of course on our backs. While ChrisC has a point that is certainly not the case here. And yes when one looks at the fare structure you are hard pressed to see the savings.
Like the supply chain its going to take a long time for some form of normalcy to return

I'm just curious if Finnair sells new business light fares on flights between Europe and Japan.
Finnair, together with other oneworld members, BA, Iberia and JAL are in the joint venture for service between Europe and Japan, to my understanding.

Nothing prevents the customers from refusing this offer. And nothing prevents Finnair from giving up on this if not enough customers are interested. I'm very curious to see if this will last.

I agree with a previous comment - there is a segment of customers who don't care about certain aspects of the traditional business class offering. They either never check luggage, nor accrue miles, nor use the lounge, nor eat on the plane, nor drink alcohol while flying etc. I actually find this Finnair idea a very interesting experiment.

"Excuse me ma'am, my seat isn't working."
"Ah yes, I see you purchased a business basic ticket. With these fares your seat is locked in the upright position. I can unlock it for you if you would like to upgrade to a regular business ticket. That will be €1000."

Fares in this particular example are obviously not very good but under the right pricing I wouldn’t be opposed to this concept. Personally, I always travel with carry on only and often travel through countries where the check in lines and boarding gates are a jumbled mess anyways where there’s no “priority” lines of boarding. It’s not particularly a perk I have ever seen any value for. Just give me a good comfortable seat in the plane with standard J food services. I would miss the lounge for sure and if I had to fly with an airline that had terrible middle seats in J then I’d value seat selection, but a lot of the other stuff that comes with a typical J is fluff so I’m good with the concept. The pricing likely never will make sense for this though.

Just watch...Finnair with business minus fares. You have to wash dishes on arrival and help load and unload baggage from the hold.

I wonder if paying for an economy ticket and then buying a business class upgrade at check-in on day of travel is a better deal than buying a basic business class ticket in advance.

There have been many YouTube bloggers who have covered the Finair A350 service from LHR and how it’s the best inter Europe business class product along with the earning potentials. I fear this has brought about the step change announced by the airline today.

I would guess that if you get to use your status even when flying economy, then you'd get to use its benefits when flying low fare business class. In fact this seems like a push to get more people to have loyalty to a FF program since you can still use those benefits while buying a slightly cheaper ticket. If you aren't a FF to any one airline however, it will just be infuriating to deal with this. I've already found myself irritated when checking google flights and seeing a good business class fare on Qatar and then realizing its their ridiculous business light version of a fare.

"There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the concept of basic business class fares, but the idea should be to offer genuine value to customers" That's the funniest thing I read today, on which planet do you live? 🙂
Of course this is a money grab, what makes business class expensive for the airline is the space the seat takes. You can't offer a significantly lower price by cutting stuff that has minimal cost associated with it. The only reason to cut these things is to keep the base price more or less the same and sell what was previously included for additional revenue.

The price in this example is too high, yes. But in general I find the concept of a business class light fare good. I would even go further and cut Business class catering and alcohol and amenity kits etc. I am convinced that there is a market for economy class travelers that just want to be seated more comfortably and have more space than in economy class but do not need the luxury of business class.

I understand that this is the wrong forum here because we are aiming for points, lounges, business and first class flights and the best onboard catering. But average people just want to have more space.

Exactly 🙂

For long haul flights you are correct. For a cheaper Intra-European fare, lounge access as well as luggage and priority security line have a higher percentage of the ticket price.
Priority luggage and priority check-in are probably just differentiation but have no additional cost.

SAS and Lufthansa have a less complicated approach: Cut lounge access for third-party lounges altogether and no priority lines - no matter which fare class you’re traveling in.

I'm wondering whether this is just a pricing/marketing gimmick. Given three choices, people tend to go for the middle one intuitively. At the same time, Finnair gets to market 'Business Class from 2700€' when in reality the aim is to nudge the customer toward that €3000 fare class.
More importantly, Basic Economy often didn't lower the lowest price—it simply replaced the lowest standard economy fare with something worse and hiked up the price of standard economy. That's also an option here. In a search engine, C-fares will appear the same, but the customer will need to pay more to retain seat selection, lounge access, priority etc.

The punitive fare model is just dumb. I hope Finnair many failures as they go down this path.

This could this be a way for Finnair to compete with airlines that have premium economy cabins. Instead of creating a separate cabin, offer some business class seats with fewer amenities.

Sure, but wouldn't the passengers who seek that market really be looking for "premium economy"? While Finnair doesn't currently offer that product, press releases from the Before Times indicated they were going to.

Seems like a really poor time to go down the "low-cost carrier" path when the airline is basically grounded and the home country (Finland) essentially remains closed to tourists.

I thought so, too! As long as oneworld élite benefits are kept, this could mean a special discount for oneworld élites, which can be seen as a positive move. I already get lounge access, priority check-in, and priority boarding as a oneworld sapphire, so why should I pay the same price for a business class ticket paid by a non-status pax? The only difference here would be checked bags, I assume.

and reduced mileage accrual.

I can understand charging for lounge access and reducing the amount of miles earned, because these are things that actually translate into saving money.

But no priority check in or boarding? These cost the airline nothing. Makes zero sense.

I just booked Qatar from JFK to Cairo with Basic (no seat selection/lounge access) incredible pricing 4400 for two ppl. I am One World Emerald and husband is OW Silver so I could book seating at time of booking. Also there is a OW Lounge in Doha (inferior to Qatar lounge) but based on layover may not make difference. If long layover would rather stay in transit hotel which is lovely.

I think lounges and priority check in and fast track security are complete deal breakers on this - especially if no exception is made for alliance most loyal flyers. I am One World Emerald and Part of the deal I make chasing tier status with $$ is that I have priority and lounge access. If Finnair goes this route (unlike Qatar which still gives those perks for tier status in their Basic fares) bad for frequent travelers like myself.

Socialist countries are gonna do socialist things. Speaks to the equality of outcome normalized in the nordics, make it for everyone and soon it becomes something for no one

All Oneworld Sapphire and Emerald benefits apply even if in this god-awful business light.

You’re probably correct that many passengers just care about the seat but for those of us who do have the means pay for a full service experience, do we really want to surrounded by a cabin full of people who are indifferent to service? Far too many are indifferent to etiquette as well. I’ve had no concerns booking with finnair in past but will likely seek other options going forward, particularly to asia. Why deal with uncertainty and inevitable uneven service when there are so many true full service options. Would have made more sense on transatlantic service where service levels at AA and BA are not great. JL or CX J or the new Finn? Lol, no chance.

I just booked Qatar from JFK to Cairo with Basic (no seat selection/lounge access) incredible pricing 4400 for two ppl. I am One World Emerald and husband is OW Saphire so I could book seating at time of booking. Also there is a OW Lounge in Doha (inferior to Qatar lounge) but based on layover may not make difference. If long layover would rather stay in transit hotel which is lovely.

Why is this "brutal"?

We are more than happy to pay for lie-flat business class seats without the other bells and whistles of business class service. Upgrades / awards may not be as easy if you are traveling with your spouse (200K miles can't score you 2 RT awards). We can usually get lounge access with Amex Platinum. Priority checkins and boardings would be nice, but definitely not a deal breaker. As for checked luggage, the math isn't hard.

I have absolutely no problem with a la carte pricing for J, as long as the pricing isn't deceptive, i.e. forcing you to pay for something at a point you have no option to decline (say, charging extra for seatbelts), but joking aside, I'm sure such practices are illegal anyway.

This!

Not cool Finnair - never flying with you!

I don’t mind business class light. Priority boarding meh.

It’s always been my thought that airlines can sell biz class fares to business travelers who don’t care about price, who fill up half the cabin. They’ll book the full fare.

But it’s very hard to sell the rest of the cabin because leisure travelers are so far back from spending $6k to fly ord to lhr. But the airlines don’t want to make cheap fares so that biz travelers get annoyed by the discrepancy. Hence the lack of flexibility of award fares etc. if you want to use an award you may not be able to fly on a monday etc. No business traveler wants a Wednesday flight. But if you’re on holiday you can buy miles and take it. Also rules like you must stay over a Saturday etc.

These fares do the same thing. Delineate so as not to piss of biz travelers who need priority check in.

They should just make it way cheaper to fill the cabin. Biz travelers will pay full fare and they can sell the rest of the cabin without cannabilising the people who have the company pay.

My company isn’t going to buy Alaska miles to fly me to Hk for work. So the airlines aren’t undercutting the people who want to pay $9k in first class for the one way fare that “costs” me $1400 when I book with miles.

All in I like it. I just want the seat and some booze. If I have a 14 hour flight and guaranteed overhead space I’ll stay in the lounge to the last minute. And if I’m denied lounge access I’ll pay $19 to have a couple of beers in a bar near the gate to save $400 or more.

It has been confirmed by Finnair that status perks do apply to Business Light, even check-in baggage. So essentially that gives gold(=sapphire) or higher members the same Business experience as classic, except for flexibility, unless you need more than 1 bag of course.

After the launch on 15th, the prices went up.
Say on 14th HEL-HKG-HEL was 2300€ RT in Business Classic. After 15th these exact flights are 2300€ in Business Light and 2650€ in Business Classic. And not just limited to these, but theres other examples also.
Im off to find status match and forget Finnair. But im just lowly LUMO.

@Ben, ZIPAIR is a very bad example of introducing light fares. It is a low cost carrier, it is JAL''s stated intention to compete in the mid to long haul LCC market with ZIPAIR. They were born with unbundled fares for the same reason, show me a low cost carrier without unbundled fares.

@Ben

Not just the US, Japan is not included either. Joint venture with JAL.

For once consumers are actually benefitting from the cartels.

Some business travelers are only allowed to book certain fares. This might trap them into only being able to book the basic business fare.

Seems basic business is similar to economy plus on some of the American carriers.
I wonder what would happen if they had to change an aircraft which does not have so many seating variations. I would be certainly annoyed if I purchased a business basic fare and ended up in an economy seat of any type.
Cleaver way to target those that want to feel like they are in business class but have a lower class product/service so to be a bit cheaper.

Seems okay to me. My two biggest reasons for flying business class are comfy seat/legroom and decent meal/drink service. Seems like I'd get that. If I were traveling solo, with just carryon, had my own lounge access with a credit card, and didn't really care what comfy seat I got, I'd save $400 to fly Business Light. I'd just check in really early and hit the Priority Pass lounge. Traveling the way I normally do, I'd probably fork over the $400 for the regular business class ticket. So, the pricing difference seems appropriate to me.

The thing about 'basic business' that confuses me is that I thought that OneWorld says that if you are flying a OneWorld flight in business class, you are entitled to lounge access. So while I get that airlines run the alliances and are constantly changing the rules to suit, does this not go against the written rules of the alliance? Or have they already changed the rules since Qatar started doing it?

My humble opinion is that Finnair tries to cover their covid losses with these unjustified price increases. I just made a big mistake by booking inter-european flight in business class without knowing that I must pay extra for my seat.
By, by Finnair.

Recently flew BCN-HEL-BKK on Finnair taking advantage of Business Light.
I’m a JL OO Emerald member. I was able to see the seats at booking on finnair.com.
At Finnair check in counter in BCN, I was able to check in 2 pieces of luggage with an allowance of 32kg as max weight per piece with priority luggage handling. At BCN I was able to access the lounge. Interestingly BCN-HEL was operated by IB with IB crew. Tight connection at HEL so did not have a chance to use the lounge there. HEL-BKK C class was quite basic and value engineering was quite visible from
Bedding to food and beverage onboard. At less than EUR900 I paid for one way from BCN to BKK, overall good it was a value though.

There is a very good reason to book Finnair's Business Light tickets on longhaul flights: the access to very comfortable Business Class seats at a lower cost. Seats where you can lie down and sleep.
It's pretty easy to get Finnair's Silver card that allows you to check in at business class counters and also check in luggage for free.

OK we book Finnair because its cheap and a great product. Ive opted for the 20kg bag and lounge access but no seat reservation. as the BC cabin is excellent and give direct isle access who in their right mind would pay another (in my case £260) to select a seat on a fare which was £1650 to BKK. if it was £20 or £30 each way id consider but 15% on top of the fare is marketing madness surely

When BA introduced charging business class passengers a fee for seat selection, I stopped flying with them. I would never fly Finnair either.

At HEL now on a QF ticketed DONE5 RTW fare. Lounge agent claims its business light - in D bucket - and thus no lounge access. This airline is a joke.

June 2024, we’re booked on Finnair business light. I had no concept of these types of class of business, my bad? should have been better informed? Anyway I confirm that Business light is pretty bad. No access to lounge and sent to economy boarding. Pretty bad experience with 3 young kids in tow.

Just had this experience. Last time I ever got finnair.