Few lounges make me more excited to return to the skies than the Finnair Platinum Wing in Helsinki. This instantly became one of my favorite lounges in the world and is so highly recommended that I would go out of my way to fly Finnair in the future just to access this lounge.
Finnair Platinum Wing Review
Hours + Access
The lounge is open daily from 5:30AM to 12:00AM and located in the non-Schengen area near gate 52. Hours may vary during the pandemic.
This is not a business class lounge. Instead, it is a status lounge available for Finnair Plus Platinum Lumo members (+ four guests), Platinum members (+ one guest), and oneworld Emerald members (+ one guest).
You’ll scan your boarding pass yourself above a beautiful cluster of lights.
If you are considering signing up for a new credit card please click here and help support LiveAndLetsFly.com.
Lockers
As you enter, lockers are available if you’ll be staying for awhile. I may be naive, but I feel very safe in these sorts of Nordic lounges and generally will just pick a spot and leave items unattended if I am eating or even showering.
Food + Drink
As you enter the lounge, the first thing you’ll notice is a beautiful bar, fully stocked including a barista happy to make a coffee drink of your choice. I’m pleased to report the cappuccinos were not just good, but great.
I love the Ultima Thule glassware (below) and Marimekko cups (above) found throughout the lounge.
A drink menu includes a number of cocktails and mocktails.
Further into the lounge you’ll find a large buffet (will it survive COVID-19?) with a selection of freshly-prepared foods depending upon the time of day. The breakfast spread included delicious bread, cold cuts, porridge, fruit, yogurt, preserves, and a number of hot dishes. Additionally, omelets were made to order.
This egg dish with green onions and mushrooms was fabulous. Anyone know what it is called?
For lunch and dinner, the buffet was updated to include appetizers like shrimp, reindeer, goat cheese plus salads, soups, and a number of vegetarian and carnivorous dishes. Choices included turkey filet, perch, vegetable lasagna, and salmon.
A La Carte Dining
The main dining attraction, however, is a la carte dining from 12:00PM to 5:00PM each day. The menu included three main courses: Arctic char, chicken Wallenberg, and an asparagus hotdog.
If I had the stomach capacity I would have tried all three, but I did try two of the three.
For starters, I made myself a nice artichoke and arugula salad from the buffet and enjoyed it with delicious dark rye bread with butter.
First, I tired the Arctic char with orange hollandaise sauce. It was perfect. I loved the spicing on the fish and the fennel was a great touch.
The asparagus hot dog was too interesting to pass up, so I ordered that as well. Rather than hot dog link, there was an asparagus stalk wrapped in a fried egg with ketchup on the side. Quite honestly, it was a nice substitute for the mystery meat of a hot dog. The sweet potato French fries were also nice.
Finally for dessert I had rich chocolate cake with ice cream, berries, and a cappuccino.
It’s a shame the hours are so limited for this service, because it is one of my favorite features of the lounge.
The lounge also features two self-serve drink stations. One even dispenses different varieties of Rynkeby.
Seating
Past the bar is a large seating area that includes comfortable chairs plus a dining area with simple wooden chairs. On the other side of the bar is hidden alcove with about 20 more seats that I never saw occupied even when the lounge got a bit more crowded in the afternoon.
The hidden seating area:
Behind the buffet is another large room with dark furniture, dark carpets, dark walls, and gold accents. It features a combination of couches and chairs and offers the only tarmac views from the lounge.
Service
A friendly barista greeted me as I entered the lounge and offered me coffee before I could even ask. What a great start! She ended up making me three cappuccinos throughout the morning.
The waitress in the a la carte dining area was very friendly as well, insisting that I try the asparagus hot dog when I asked how it was.
There’s also a hidden crew of attendants who keep the lounge spotless. The restrooms and showers were always perfectly in order.
Restrooms + Showers
The lounge includes three shower suites plus a large locker room with three more showers plus restrooms. Shower suites were reserved on a first-come, first-serve basis by simply touching the small monitor outside the door, which reserved the shower for 30 minutes.
Male and female changing rooms separated the common sauna area. In addition to showers and toilets, the changing rooms included key-coded lockers that even had plugs inside so you could charge your devices while enjoying the sauna.
Sauna
We finally each my favorite part of this lounge. The sauna is a central part of Finnish culture and Finnair offers a lovely one in this lounge. Throughout the morning I enjoyed three sessions in the sauna, a soothing exfoliation of sweat and stress. A mood-lighting ceiling outside the sauna conveyed a sense of the morning sky. It is a superb sauna and well-worth the effort of getting undressed (this isn’t Germany so wrap a towel around yourself) and spending 10-20 minutes inside.
Twice I was alone in the sauna. The final time, there was a Finnish guy in there and we ended up chatting for 15 minutes about COVID-19, which was just beginning to rear its ugly head. He just started talking (in Finnish first, but effortlessly pivoted to English)…apparently that is how it works in Finnish public saunas? So not only did I get to enjoy the sauna itself, but the communal fellowship in Finland that characterizes it. I continue to find Finnish people amongst the friendliest in Europe, which I understand bucks conventional wisdom.
CONCLUSION
I cannot say enough nice things about this lounge and really cannot think of anything I did not like about it. Hopefully it will maintain its lovely character post-pandemic. Even writing this makes me so excited to get back in the air and back to Helsinki.
If you are considering signing up for a new credit card please click here and help support LiveAndLetsFly.com.
It’s pretty PG, but still not sure you want one of those bathroom shots in there Matthew!
Matthew just leave it. For all of us!
Oh wow, that was an oversight. I’ll actually have a couple of deliberate sauna shots when I compare the Air France and Finnair saunas, but this wasn’t one of them.
Can’t believe I haven’t made it to this one. AY is a must fly as soon as it’s worth it.
I too, seem to get along well with Finns. They always seem to appreciate my sense of humor.
Definitely worth a visit. It never seems crowded. The balance between buffet and a la carte works well. I’m not a big fan of lounges, but like this one ( …and the quality of it stands out all the more if it’s sandwiched between visits to the overcrowded and nightmarish lounges at Arlanda and Schipol). Very nice….
The egg dish you did know is called eggsouffle. In finnish, munakohokas.
I don’t know the origin, but here in Thailand my wife do it sometime.
Easy to do: 2 person. -3-4 eggs
-½dl water
-salt,pepper
-green onions or
leak
-mushrooms
-steam about
20min, enjoy!