Finnair’s Airbus A350 To Singapore In Economy Class

Today, we’ll go over the long-haul economy class flight experience onboard an Airbus A350-900 from Helsinki to Singapore. This article will first go over some trip background and how I chose Finnair over competing airlines. I’ll then move on to reviewing the actual flight before wrapping things up by offering some thoughts and opinions on the Finnair long-haul experience in this particular cabin class.

Trip background: Why Finnair?

So how was Finnair chosen for this trip in the first place? With my trip originating in Vilnius, Lithuania and having a final destination of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the itinerary would be a two-stop trip with transfers at Helsinki and Singapore. Obviously, a step down from a single-stop itinerary, there should be some good reasons for enduring the torture of two airport transfers, right?

Well, I decided to go with Finnair for a handful of reasons:

1. Novelty: It was a new airline for which to conduct a flight review. This would obviously offer a whole new world of experiences to write about.
2. Price: The only single-stop itinerary that was on offer was from Turkish Airlines. While the Turkish carrier offers a checked bag as part of its lowest fare (unlike Finnair), it was also significantly more expensive than booking with the Finnish carrier. Indeed, instead of paying about $1300 per passenger with Turkish Airlines, I paid the equivalent of $920. This Finnair ticket was slightly higher than the lowest available fare as my tickets included one piece of checked baggage per passenger, as well as a reduced penalty for flight changes.
3. Aircraft type: And finally, in researching Turkish Airlines’ equipment flying from Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur, it was clear that the airline was using its older Boeing 777-300ERs. While the Turkish inflight experience is generally quite good, I was keen to avoid the old inflight entertainment systems that were experienced on a trip several months prior.

The actual flight I’ll be reviewing is Finnair’s AY131 from Helsinki to Singapore. Operated by an Airbus A350-900 registered OH-LWD, this aircraft is a little over seven years old and is apparently the 22nd A350 ever built! The service had a flight time of 12 hours and 21 minutes, which is a little longer than it was prior to February 2022. Now unable to fly through Russian, Belarusian, or Ukrainian airspace, this flight would have been closer to 11-and-a-half hours in duration prior to the war in Ukraine.

In February 2022, the airline changed the layout of this aircraft. The business class cabin was completely updated and thus resulted in three fewer seats. Prior to this refit, the airline had an economy-comfort cabin but with the refit now offers a true premium economy experience with completely new seats. The refit saw fewer premium economy seats replacing the economy comfort section while three standard economy seats were added. All-in-all, the refit resulted in a net reduction of 19 seats.

For travelers looking to fly directly between Helsinki and Singapore, this Finnair service seems to be the only non-stop option available. However, single-stop itineraries between the two cities include offerings from Turkish Airlines, as well as codeshare arrangements between Finnair and airlines like Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways, with respective transits in Hong Kong and Doha.

Transfer and boarding

Getting to the actual trip, things started in Vilnius on a blustery winter evening. The journey began with an ATR72 flight from Vilnius to Helsinki. Operated by Finnair’s regional partner Norra, this first leg won’t be covered in this article but if you’re interested in it, do keep an eye out for a separate review on this site!

Upon landing in Helsinki, transferring through its Vantaa airport was a breeze. No security screening was needed in the transfer process while border control was quick and easy. This may have been largely helped by our late, weekday-evening transfer time. The airport itself is beautiful and spacious and surprisingly quiet – even for 21:00 on a Wednesday night. After waiting for about three hours, boarding for our long-haul flight began. Passengers lined up to have their boarding passes scanned and were then held in an enclosed pre-boarding area. The area, which offered a great view of the A350, had plenty of seating and even included a rocking chair and recliner!

The calls to actually board the plane were interesting as there were really only two: One for business class and elite status members, and another call for everyone else. This was quite a different experience from other airlines which might have up to five boarding zones in addition to pre-boarding for families with small children and others needing extra time. This ultimately meant a free-for-all rush to the jet bridge, although everything seemed quite calm and civil. It’s ultimately less work for gate agents to enforce a strict boarding order with multiple zones, but it would be interesting to know how this affects overall boarding time.

Aircraft cabin and seating

Stepping onto the aircraft, the A350’s interior was a calming mix of blue, grey, and white. Walking back to seats 55A and 55B, we were warmly greeted by flight attendants along the way.

The economy class seats onboard this Finnair a350 are a light grey with textured fabric and headrests that can be adjusted up and down. These headrests also have wings on both sides to support the head. On each seat are three things: A blanket, a small pillow, and a pair of earbuds for the inflight entertainment system. Additionally, a small bottle of water awaits each passenger in the seat-back pocket.

Seat spacing was ample, even for me at 181 cm – nearly six feet tall. Recline was quite good as well and there was the fantastic bonus of not having any obtrusive inflight entertainment box under the seat to restrict legroom. Laid-out in a 3-3-3 configuration, these seats are stated to be 46 centimeters (18.11 inches) in width with a pitch that SeatGuru.com notes is nearly 79 centimeters – or 31 inches. All in all, the seat was comfortable enough for a long-haul flight, and I even managed to get a few hours of solid sleep!

Inflight entertainment

When it comes to the inflight entertainment system, these A350s sport sufficiently modern equipment with large, fast, and responsive touchscreens. While not Bluetooth compatible or supporting USB-C, the systems all had one USB-A port for charging devices and dual headphone jacks for audio – although single-prong earbuds work just fine as well. There were no AC outlets for charging larger devices, unfortunately. The screens, unfortunately, were incapable of tilting. While it’s not the end of the world, this can present challenging viewing conditions if the passenger seated in front decides to recline.

As for the content within these systems, there seemed to be a sufficiently robust offering of movies, television, music, and games to entertain passengers for hours. On top of multimedia, passengers can access an interactive moving map as well as external cameras. One of these cameras appears to be located up on the vertical stabilizer while the other is down by the front landing gear- perfect for passengers with a middle or aisle seat who still want to see what’s going on outside.

One thing that was particularly nice to see on this flight was an approximate schedule of services across a timeline of the trip, as you can see in the image below. This gives passengers an idea of meal times and rest times and is extremely helpful for those who want to make sure they’re awake for a meal service!

Inflight meals

And speaking of meal service, I encountered something new when compared to all of my previous long-haul travel experiences: Finnair’s general inflight meal lacked any options. Essentially, if passengers failed to pre-select a specific meal according to their dietary restrictions, then they had no choice but to accept one main dish. Thus, you didn’t have any flight attendants asking “chicken or pasta?” on this flight. In this case, the single main course on-offer was tomato garlic chicken with quinoa. While a single main course option isn’t exactly an earth-shattering change, it certainly was a surprise since every other long-haul experience for me had two options to choose from.

A spokesperson for Finnair confirms that the offering of a single meal option (in addition to taking complimentary pre-orders for special meals for special diets and allergies) is a strategy for waste reduction. The carrier found that, when a second option was offered, a lot of food ended up becoming waste – which didn’t fit with its ethos. Multiple meal options are still offered in the airline’s business class, however.

The main was accompanied by a bread roll and butter, as well as a pasta salad starter. For dessert, the airline went with a packaged chocolate-covered toffee-filled wafer, which seemed like a bit of a step-down from a real dessert that would be in a little dish or cup of its own. While complimentary wine was offered with the meal, I went with the airline’s signature blueberry juice – a unique offering not found with other airlines. Served closer to landing, the second meal (which was either breakfast in the origin time zone or dinner at the destination) was a vegetarian lasagna with green lentils as the main filling.

So how was the food? Well, I found the tomato-chicken dish to be overly salty. This might explain the absence of any salt and pepper packets to adjust the flavor. Meanwhile, the accompanying quinoa was on the soft and mushy side, although it tasted okay. The “dessert” was fine but also didn’t feel like a true dessert either. As for the second, lighter meal of lasagna, it was quite good. If you’re hoping for something that’s more of a light breakfast than you might be disappointed due to the meal’s heaviness. However, I found the lasagna noodles to be cooked perfectly and enjoyed all the melted cheese that was part of it.

Beyond the inflight meal and inflight entertainment system there are a few more things worth mentioning about this flight.

First, I found the “off” lighting of the lavatories to be brighter than necessary. While other airlines might have fairly dim lighting in the lavatories prior to closing the door and locking it, the Finnair facilities were a relatively bright white lighting. This meant that whenever passengers opened a lavatory door, light would pour out. This definitely caused some disruption in sleep for me, as I didn’t pack an eyeshade.

Speaking of eyeshade (or lack of one), this lengthy Finnair service didn’t include any sort of amenity kit. While it might be quite standard for middle eastern airlines to provide an economy class amenity kit on select flights, it’s less consistent for European carriers. Thus, it wasn’t a huge surprise or disappointment with Finnair, but something worth mentioning for the sake of comparison with other carriers.

And finally, the airline’s inflight WiFi seemed to be a little spotty. I was unable to connect to the network for a large portion of the flight and was only able to check out the internet options closer to the end. Travelers should also know that Finnair only has paid internet options, without any sort of free low-speed offering. On the other hand, carriers like Singapore Airlines and Delta offer WiFi for members of their respective loyalty programs, while Air France has free connectivity for all passengers for basic messaging.

Conclusion: Good value for money

The Finnair A350 economy class cabin is beautifully designed and truly offers some Nordic simplicity and style while remaining comfortable. But while the carrier’s hard-product shines, its soft product offerings show small signs of cost-cutting: From the single meal option and lack of dessert, to a lack of free, basic WiFi (either for loyalty members or as a low-speed option to send messages).

Despite the absence of these small perks you’d typically find on some other long-haul carriers, this lengthy flight was comfortable and pleasant enough. The flight’s Singapore-based cabin crew were warm, friendly, and very professional throughout all of their duties and moved throughout the cabin swiftly to serve passengers.

Ultimately, Finnair’s long-haul experience lacks some of the finer perks, comforts, and options that you might find on other airlines. However, it might help to understand that the carrier is currently in a rather challenging situation due to Helsinki’s geographic position in Northeastern Europe. Indeed, having to fly longer services during a period of higher fuel costs has put the airline in a fairly tough spot when it comes to connecting passengers to destinations in Asia. Indeed, the carrier is forced to circumvent Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian airspace and burn more fuel in the process.

So, when I think about these challenges and how my ticket was significantly less than the most convenient itinerary, then it’s quite impressive that Finnair is able to operate its services to Asia profitably. When considering the Airbus A350’s comfortable seats in economy class, along with a robust selection of inflight entertainment and two complimentary meals- all at a competitive price – then flying with Finnair seems like a decent option – especially for the budget-conscious traveler – or those who want to get between Helsinki and Singapore without any transfers.

But what do you think of Finnair’s long-haul experience in economy class? Is it an airline you would consider flying with? Let us know what you think, by leaving a comment!

Sources: SeatGuru.com, FlightRadar24.com

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  Reducing costs will play a key role in helping Finnair return to profitability. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

  Finnair

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  AY/FIN

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Hub(s):

  Helsinki Airport

  Year Founded:

  1923

  Alliance:

  oneworld

  CEO:

  Topi Manner

  Country:

  Finland