The flight with Finnair from Brussels to Beijing (over Helsinki) was delightfull. We left Brussels in time and arrived in Helsinki a few minutes early.
The flight from Helsinki to Beijing arrived 15 minutes early in Beijing. Also on the return flight they managed to fly exactly to shedule.
Flight to Helsinki is done in a A319, Helsinki Beijing in a MD11. The service on board is perfect, decent food and good wine for free. Not so much onboard entertainment. A good book get's you trough the flight, if you are not too much distracted by the nice (blond) cabin crew and the few nice chinese girls.
Next time I will take Hainan airlines from Brussels because it is a non-stop flight, otherwise I wouldn't doubt and take finnair back.
The Helsinki-Vantaa airport is also very comfortable. It is, for an airport, incredibly quiet. It must be a real shock for the chinese people leaving from the busy airport in Beijing to arrive in this very calm airport.
Finnair to Beijing
Helsinki is a good place for a hub to east Asia. The shortest route to Beijing is quite north over Russia, so Helsinki is not that far off from the ideal route. This must have something to do with it. Maybe also the relations with the USSR years ago that made it relatively easy for the finnish company in comparison with others.
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NordicNonBlond
- Posts: 3
- Joined: 07 Dec 2005, 00:00
Finnair and Asia
USSR really didn't help Finnair, actually opposite: When AY started to fly to Tokyo in 1980', their DC-10s were not allowed to use Soviet airspace, so AY's planes had to fly the polar route, with extra fuel tanks.JCO wrote:Helsinki is a good place for a hub to east Asia. The shortest route to Beijing is quite north over Russia, so Helsinki is not that far off from the ideal route. This must have something to do with it. Maybe also the relations with the USSR years ago that made it relatively easy for the finnish company in comparison with others.
Helsinki sure has an ideal geographical position, Finnair also were in the right place at the right time, when it decided to focus on Asia. I think SAS and Copenhagen/Stockholm could have done the same, but Finnair has been in a better shape financially than SAS, it could invest and take risks.
There sure is a risk, in a way Finnair have most of the eggs in one basket, though it looks good at the moment.