A Warm Welcome from Cool Finnair

We recently travelled with Finnair from Heathrow to Helsinki on their morning service which is operated by their largest and newest aircraft, the Airbus A330. After Helsinki, this aircraft was going onwards to Tokyo.

Having checked in online, we collected our boarding passes from one of the kiosks at T3, similar to using a cashpoint. Many airlines use this method and it was easy as we only had to use our booking reference and name to access our reservation details. On this occasion, the printer ran out of paper, so we didn't get all of our luggage labels but the helpful staff at the bag drop desk, soon rectified that and we were on our way.

Economy class on this aircraft type has the option of Economy Comfort Seats which are at the front of the economy cabin and offer extra legroom. I recommend this, it was very comfortable, and the seats are configured 3-4-3. The interior is very cool and calm in pale shades of grey.

The seat back TV was a hit with the kids and adults alike and there was a choice of films, TV programmes and music from Scandinavia, UK, Japan and worldwide. There are also cameras and the map so you can track your flight progress.

The inflight service offers complimentary tea, coffee, water and blueberry juice (typically Finnish) and there is a choice of snacks to purchase on board from the Sky Bistro menu as well as a selection of Duty Free.

We even saw the Northern Lights! OK, so not the real ones on this occasion but as the aircraft was making its descent, there are subtle lighting effects on the cabin ceiling to emulate the Aurora Borealis!

Finnair have regular services from London Heathrow and worldwide connections from Helsinki, notably to Japan and the Far East so this is certainly an airline to consider when looking at a short haul flight to Finland to travelling further East.