Finnair is returning to Los Angeles.
This is not Finnair’s first attempt to serve Los Angeles, but it has been many years. This time, the carrier will operate an A350-900 aircraft on the route, which is one of my favorite airplanes. Based upon the assigned flight numbers, it appears this will be Finnair’s flagship route:
AY1 Helsinki to Los Angeles dep 4:40 P.M. arr 5:40 P.M. [11hrs]
AY2 Los Angeles to Helsinki dep 7:50 P.M. arr 4:05 P.M. (+1 day) [10hrs, 35min]
The new flight will begin on March 31, 2019 and operate 3x weekly (Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday).
These are excellent flight times in both directions (though the 2hr, 10min turn is fairly ambitious for Los Angeles…). The outbound from Helsinki gives you a relaxing day in the city or plenty of time to connect before the flight to LA. In the other direction, the late evening departure maximizes sleep time and still allows for same-day onward connections via Helsinki to Continental Europe or Asia.
Although I am primarily loyal to Star Alliance, I had not just a good but superb flight on Finnair aboard the A350 from Helsinki to Beijing. I loved the transit experience in Helsinki and the onboard business class seat and soft product was superb. The Finnair lounge even has a sauna!
Award Space Already Loaded
Award space is already available on the new route. It won’t show on AA.com, but you can check space using the British Airways website and then call AA to book. AA charges 57.5K for a one-way ticket (even with an onward connection within Europe) and no fuel surcharge. Meanwhile, BA charges 90,000 miles simply for the LAX-HEL flight and adds a hefty fuel surcharge on top of over $500 each way. I do not recommend booking this trip with BA, though if you received the 90K miles from Iberia Avios and transferred them to British Airways, it still represents a pretty sweet deal.
CONCLUSION
I hope to return to Finland and experience Finnair again on this Los Angeles new service.
> Read More: Finnair A350 Business Class Helsinki to Beijing Review
> Read More: Finnair Business Class Lounge Helsinki (HEL) Review
Superb clickbait title!
While I’m guilty of clickbait from time to time, is it not true? Not even an exaggeration.
Don’t forget that you can now book Finnair using AS miles online. 70k in J, which might be a decent deal given the current bonus on purchased miles. Rather bizarrely, AS also allows you to route from the US to Asia via HEL and vice versa for 125k total. I am tempted…
Finnair has a great long-haul product these days, I just hope they would do some slight adjustments to the A350 business class seats in the near future, things can get a bit cramped. Some might find the interior colors a bit bland but personally that’s much more to my taste than any ostentatious cabin with gold, burgundy, fake wood and the like!
Totally agree on the color scheme JohnK. Very much prefer an understated look to a technicolor approach – which looks worse as the product ages.
I’d rate them as very good rather than superb. I do love the Helsinki transfers: even 45 minutes seems to be a breeze, maybe even time for the lounge.
The footwell on the 350 is a bit narrow for turning but otherwise great.
Is Finnair a reasonable alternative for Californians looking to fly to Asia — Delhi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok? I would assume most of those (except for Delhi) are quicker to fly to via the Pacific, but I know the world isn’t flat and Helsinki as a connection point minimizes deviation from the great circle route.
I would say yes to all when flying business class but not worthwhile for economy class.
I lived in Sweden for a couple of years and the country is the direct catchment area for Finnair. So obviously a lot of Swedes fly Finnar (lots of my friends do). They would be very very very surprised to find out, to put politely, that they apparently they had been flying superb airline :).
Honestly it’s nothing wrong with Finnair, but nothing superb about them either. I wouldn’t even call them decent or very good. It’s a fine airline, dismal service within Europe, limited service in longhaul economy, good but not outstanding in business, worst in the class frequent flyer program, that’s about it.
Of course it’s a good to have another option. Finnair will bring Californians the best possible connections to Baltics, St. Petersburg, Moscow and secondary Scandinavian airports. They build their schedule the way it allows 30-45 min connections between JFK flight and TLL, RIX or LED for instance. I assume it would be the case with LAX flight as well.