Finnair A350 Business Class (AirLounge) Review: Is It Worth It? (Phuket – Helsinki)

Rating: 5/5 (As good as it gets: massive seat, great food, warm service)

Route: HKT-HEL (depart 10:45AM arrive 6:30PM)

Price: 85,000 Alaska Mileage Plan Miles + $67 (note: this is the price for both this flight AND my next flight on Finnair Business Class from Helsinki to JFK. This is why I love Alaska miles so much)

Introduction

While I was sad to be heading home from my Southeast Asia trip, I still had my next two flights to look forward to. This flight in particular ended up being one of my favorite flights – ever.

My itinerary for this trip was as follows:

1. Phuket (HKT) – Helsinki (HEL) (depart 10:45AM arrive 6:30PM) – 13 hour flight on the A350
2. Overnight Layover in Helsinki
3. Helsinki (HEL) – NYC (JFK) (depart 4:55PM arrive 7:05PM) – 9 hour flight on the A330

I booked this trip for 85,000 miles and $67 via Alaska Mileage plan. This flight in cash would have priced out in the ~$5k range, so this redemption netted out at around 6 cents per point. This is why I love Alaska miles and why there’s still a ton of value to be found in the points game, even though it’s generally harder to find good premium availability than it used to be.

At the time of writing, this is a seasonal flight that Finnair operates from November to April catering to those looking to escape the winter in the Northern Hemisphere. What’s interesting is that they utilize their most premium aircraft on what is a very leisure-heavy, non-premium route. For what it’s worth, when I flew in February, the flight was 100% full, so I assume Finnair can somewhat make the yields work here. They also probably use the A350 now for the extra distance / fuel needed since this flight takes a longer, somewhat zig-zagging route to avoid Ukrainian / Russian airspace, which would otherwise be the most efficient way to get between Phuket and Helsinki. Here’s what the flight map looks like, which effectively adds 1,000 more miles vs. the great circle distance.

This would also be my first time trying out Finnair in general, and I was curious to see their (somewhat controversial) no-recline business class seat. This ended up being one of my favorite seats ever, but it’s definitely not for everyone. More on that later.

Anyways, in this post, you’ll find:

Getting to the Airport & Ground Experience in Phuket

Getting to Phuket airport can be tricky, in that the only was to get there is by car (or bus) and traffic can be quite unpredictable. I was coming from Patong Beach, which in the morning took around 45 minutes on the windy roads in Phuket. Note this can stretch to well over an hour during times with more traffic, so I’d make sure to leave some buffer. I used Grab to get to the airport (Uber of Southeast Asia), which was $25 USD and quick and easy.

The low point of the experience was the ground experience in Phuket, which was not good, but also not a surprise. Phuket airport in general is pretty worn-down and old, and the lounge situation is not great. Given this is a seasonal flight, Finnair does not have a lounge here. However, it was pretty cool to see random heavy aircraft come in to what is a somewhat small airport.

I tried out the priority pass lounge available in the international terminal, which is the Coral Executive lounge which I review here. This place was pretty terrible and I’d avoid coming to the airport early in general at Phuket, just make sure to leave enough buffer time to make it to the airport and get through security and customs.

Boarding & Finnair’s A350

Boarding started around an hour before departure, starting with business class and Oneworld elites.

Boarding was pretty quick and efficient, although my boarding pass was rejected at the gate. I briefly panicked thinking my award ticket might not have actually been ticketed, but the gate agent did a manual override and waved me through.

Finnair has 18 A350s in its fleet, with 1 still on order. There are two variants of this aircraft in the fleet, all with the same hard product, just one has 278 seats total in a more premium-heavy configuration (43 business class AirLounge seats) while the other variant has 321 seats total in a more leisure-focused configuration (30 business class AirLounge seats).

The A350 is my favorite plane to fly on. Besides looking cool, it’s very quiet (almost strangely so) and can be pressurized to ~6,000 feet with better cabin humidity vs older aircraft like the 777. This doesn’t really matter for short-haul flights, but for a 13 hour flight, it makes a huge difference on how you’ll feel afterwards.

My flight today was on the more premium-heavy A350 variant. This version has two business class cabins: one larger one up front, and a smaller one past the lavatories towards the wings of the aircraft.

Business Class Seat (AirLounge) Review

The most unique thing about Finnair you’ll notice when boarding is its business class seat. It’s the only airline to operate this specific hard product, which Finnair has coined the “AirLounge”. The seats are extremely wide and look like cocoons. This seat is made by Collins Aerospace, right now just for Finnair (but hopefully other airlines adopt it, because I love this seat).

My seat today was in the very back left of the front business class cabin, 8A.

What’s unique about this seat is that there’s no built-in recline function. That’s why the seat has so much space – there’s no moving parts or machinery hiding behind the seat. However, you can still lie-flat but extending the footrest into a vertical position, which still effectively turns the seat into a (wide) and comfortable bed where you just need to slide your body down.

I really, really like the ergonomics of the seat. It feels massively larger than a standard reverse herringbone seat. I’m 6’2 and could sit comfortably with my legs crossed:

Here’s the seat without the footrest raised (regular mode, no bed):

You are able to control the (minimal) seat functions via this side panel here:

And here’s the seat in full recline mode. where you just slide yourself forward to sleep. I’m 6’2 and had plenty of room to lie down fully and comfortably without contorting myself like I sometimes have to do with reverse herringbone seats.

The seat also has touchless charging which is a super useful feature for phones that support it. There’s also lots of convenient storage places if you need it. I mostly just dumped all my things on the main console though.

Pre-Departure Service & Takeoff

Anyways, enough about the seat. On to the flight itself, which was incredible. Service started on the ground in Phuket with Finnair’s signature drink: blueberry juice. I’m not a huge fan of fruit juice or sugary drinks in general but I had a least 5 glasses on this flight. When else am I going to have blueberry juice at 35,000 feet? Well, I guess tomorrow for my next flight on Finnair. But after then, not for awhile.

Flight attendants promptly handed out amenity kits, made by Finland-based Marimekko.

In Finnish style, everything was very minimalist and emphasized nature and sustainability:

Lip balm was not included (“for sustainability”) but you could request it from the flight attendant’s secret stash.

Pushback was quick and pretty soon we were lining up for takeoff. One thing I regret is not just staying near Phuket airport (i.e Marriott Nai Yang beach or something like that) because of the beach planespotting here. I didn’t realize it was so good, so I guess I’ll have to come back.

Takeoff out of Phuket was beautiful:

Flight and Service Review

It was time to settle in to the next 13 hours in the air. Luckily, Finnair has a really good selection of in flight entertainment options, featuring international and western options for movies and TV. The screen is pretty massive at 18″ and has a responsive touchscreen.

To stretch out, you have to lay diagonal, but because of the angled-shape of the seat, it still feels comfortable for hours.

25 minutes or so after takeoff, the initial meal service began. Here was the menu for today’s flight. The menu was simple with limited options, but the food ended up being really good all around.

Meal service began with warm nuts and I went with the Blueberry Spritz, which was really good.

The meal was served all at once. There were two smaller cold dishes: smoked duck salad and smoked salmon and crab roll, both of which were very good. For my main, I went with the braised beef brisket in green curry, which was legitimately a top 5 airplane meal I’ve had. I don’t know how they pulled this off with Phuket catering but hey, if it works, it works.

For dessert, I opted for the lemon and lime tart, which was also really good:

After the meal, I got a post-dinner espresso to keep me awake for awhile. This was real espresso from an onboard machine, which is always a treat when available on any flight.

One cool thing about this A350 (and many others) is that there are live cams out the aircraft. So if you need a break from the movies, you can just watch the plane fly live.

Another thing to call out on this flight was the service. The crew was exceptionally nice and warm, and did a great job throughout what is a very long flight. Service on European carriers can sometimes be hit or miss (similar to the big 3 American players), but this crew was very good.

Moving onto the obligatory lavatory review – things were pretty standard, but there’s actually a window right above the toilet, so you can go to the bathroom with a view. So +1 to Finnair for opting for that choice.

And here’s the view from the back of the business class cabin halfway through the flight:

Given the length of this flight, Finnair cabin crew lays out an array of snacks and beverages in the business class galley (which by the way, is very well designed aesthetically):

The crew also passed out some small snacks midflight, like this fruit cup (which by its contents, could only have been sourced in Thailand):

As we were around 8 hours into the flight, the crew began the second meal service, which was a quiche. Honestly this wasn’t good, but I still ate it because I was very hungry at this point.

After a few more movies, we were making our approach into cold and dark Helsinki. What made this flight interesting is that because we were flying west, we were chasing daylight pretty much the entire flight. The sunset at the end as we flew over continental Europe was extra long (and beautiful) as well before we descended below the clouds.

Conclusion

All in all, this was one of my favorite flights, ever. The service was exceptional, the aircraft and seat were great, and food was generally really good. This flight was 13 hours and didn’t feel long at all. However, unfortunately Finnish customs was very short staffed when I landed so it ended up taking quite awhile to make it out of the airport. After around a 1.5 hour wait, I made it through and was on my way into downtown Helsinki to get some much-needed rest.