Airlines

Boarding started around 15 minutes late, but the doors were closed by 2:11 (just 4 minutes after our scheduled departure time) and we pushed back at 2:15 - not too bad. There were no major issues during the boarding process. The gate agents were good at making sure that passengers boarded only when it was their turn but they were as lax as usual when it came to ensuring that passengers weren't bringing on ridiculous sized "hand baggage". I saw some truly colossal cases brought onboard.

Back on 15 October I took a quick day-trip to Helsinki to try out the latest Finnair aircraft - an Airbus A350XWB - which was still flying "crew orientation" flights around Europe. The Finnair Airbus A350XWB is fitted with two exterior cameras - one on the underside of the aircraft and one on/around the tail - and the cool thing is that you can watch the feeds from these cameras on the personal TV screen at your seat. This is a video of what I could see on my TV screen as we came in to land at London Heathrow Airport - I haven't edited the sound or picture in any way so the noise and the shake are very real! :)

Boarding started very promptly 45 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Luckily, due to the overcrowding in the Amex Centurion lounge, we had headed to the gate earlier than we normally would have and we got to the gate just in time for Priority Boarding. Kudos to the American Airlines Gate agents who were not shy in turning back people with "Group 3" printed in a big, bold, font on the boarding passes while First Class and Executive Platinums boarded.

If you've read the introduction to this trip report you'll know that we booked our flights to Aruba with cash and in the Economy Class cabin in the hopes that my Systemwide Upgrades would see us flying in Business Class. Having booked the flights in January (a full 9 months before departure) I felt reasonably confident that the upgrades would come through. They didn't.

In Part 1 of this review I took a look a the pre-boarding/boarding experience with Finnair and the cabins & seats on the Airbus A350XWB. In this part of the review I'll take look at the rest of the offering onboard from the entertainment and WiFi to the food and service offered.

This was the big event and the whole point of my lightning trip to Helsinki. The Finnair A350XWB wasn't anywhere to be seen when I landed at Helsinki Airport and there was good reason for that....it was en route from Munich on another of its "crew familiarisation" trips.

I’m starting to find myself flying on Finnair a lot more nowadays. They’re a member of the OneWorld Alliance which means that I can credit my flights on Finnair to my American Airlines AAdvantage account. That, in turn, means that I earn AAdvantage miles as well as miles towards American Airlines status which I value quite highly.

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I've never been one for videoing too many things (I'm pretty terrible at it) but a beautiful sunny day with no low clouds was...

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I've lost count the number of times I've flown on this exact flight path and seen this view of London from the air (when...