UPDATE: Finnair has invested heavily in updating their lounge experience, and opened the Platinum Wing in 2019. See this post for a full, detailed review.
Continue reading: Review: Finnair Lounge Helsinki
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Have you seen the prices of alcoholic drinks in Scandinavia? Don't know if it also applies for Finland, but in Norway and Sweden they're outrageous. No surprise that a lounge in an airport caters quite some alcoholic beverages 😉
The lounge gets much more crowded, almost to the point of overcrowding, when the early evening bank of flights to Asia departs. I really find this to be a substandard lounge. The food options are weak and most of the alcohol is not free of charge. Finnair on the whole offers a watered-down premium experience. I only use it when there is no other Oneworld option that complies with the company travel policies.
Hi Ben - Glad you reviewed this lounge! I will be flying through Finland soon on a 1-way "business class" redemption on Finnair, via AAdvantage. This is one of those "business class" on the AAdvantage site, although the Finnair site does not show any "business class" seats on the plane. I was curious if you know if this will give me access to the lounge, since I paid 2x miles for the ticket, although there is not an actual class of service offered through the ...?
Wow, they have really cut back there. Apparently they did have a kitchen area with hot food. They also had the spa area with plunge pool which has since closed, but it didn't get much use as it was pricey entrance fee.
@ Pointsnob -- Assuming you're booked in business class ("U" class as your fare code) then you should have lounge access. Intra-Europe business class is often only a coach seat with a blocked middle.
Adjacent to the lounge there used to be a spa, and let me tell you, the Finns know how to do spas. OW Emeralds were entitled to free admission, which gave access to four different kinds of heat/steam rooms, a cold wading trough to refresh your feet, and a cool soaking pool; various spa treatments were available for a fee. That amenity made up for the lackluster refreshments in the lounge. How I miss that!
Scandinavians (actually Nordics since Finland is not Scandinavia) consume liquor like crazy. They even have overnight cruises between Stockholm-HEL or Stockholm-Mariehamn whose "sole purpose" is to purchase lots of liquor without tax, so no surprise to see such a beautiful lounge that has more liquor than food.
But alcohol is taxed to the max, so , to have that much liquor in that lounge, must be a huge expense, in my opinion. No wonder hot food is absent.
Note that there are two Finnair lounges at the airport, one on the Schengen side and the other one on the non-Schengedn which Ben is writing about.
Pointsnob, you will be in the other lounge because you are flying within Schengen.
Hehe LHR T5 has those same voting buttons at security - I think the red ones have worn out...