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Towards the beginning of the year, Finnair surprised quite a few people when it unveiled a new and very different Business Class seat alongside its long rumored Premium Economy Cabin. Since then, we’ve seen the new cabins appearing on select routes to Asia as well as on a couple of Finnair’s US routes, and now they’re coming to Miami.
As things stand, Finnair operates one of its excellent A350 aircraft on the Helsinki – Miami route, but on 10 January 2023, an A330 fitted with the airline’s new Business Class and Premium Economy cabins will be taking over.
This is what the schedule looks like:
AY7 HEL 16:50 – 21:00 MIA (Tue, Thu & Sat)
AY8 MIA 22:45 – 15:25+1 day HEL (Tue, Thu & Sat)
The refurbished A330 will continue to operate this route through to the end of the winter season (end of March 2023) at which point the service gets suspended.
Currently, there’s nothing in the schedules to suggest that the route will be back for winter 2023/24 but as Finnair has yet to confirm its plans for next winter, that could change in the coming weeks and months.
Finnair’s new cabins
Finnair is the first airline to fit its aircraft with the new Collins Aerospace AirLounge seat and this is the seat that is set to, finally, give Finnair a consistent Business Class hard product across all of its long-haul aircraft.
The new Business Class cabin has a 1-2-1 layout and looks like this:
And we’re told that the seats have been designed to maximize a passenger’s comfort and space and to give passengers the freedom to move during their flight.
Per Finnair:
“The seat’s innovative fixed contoured shell with no recline enables a wide variety of sitting and sleeping positions: you can sit at different angles, rest your feet on the ottoman or use infill panels to create a large flat surface. A mattress and duvet turn the space into a comfortable bed, and you can use the cushy pillows to relax in a variety of sitting positions. The high cocoon like shell of the seat provides privacy, while the divider between central seats can be lowered when travelling with a companion.”
Impressively (assuming this to be true), the new seat is said to have enough storage options to allow a passenger to put away their personal items, laptops, and also any pillows and bedding that are provided while keeping everything close to hand (i.e. this doesn’t include the overhead bins).
In keeping with the modern nature of the new cabin, each seat comes with extensive power options including USB-A, USB-C, regular power outlets, and wireless mobile charging.
The all-new Finnair Premium Economy cabin (which is being fitted to the airline’s A350 aircraft as well as its A330s) it isn’t too dissimilar to the Premium Economy cabins that you’ll find onboard American Airlines and British Airways.
The cabin offers a maximum of 26 seats, which means that allowing for a slightly staggered layout, the cabin doesn’t have more than 3 rows.
Finnair has said that its Premium Economy seat offers “40% more space than Economy Class” (it once claimed that it offers approximately 50% more space than Economy Class which) and, in practice, that means that passengers have 38″ of seat pitch (legroom), a little under 19″ of seat width, 8″ of recline.
It’s worth noting at this point that because Finnair still offers seats that are 18″ wide in its long-haul Economy Class cabins, the new Premium Economy Class seats won’t feel particularly wide to travelers used to the airline’s entry-level cabin.
For everyone used to the long-haul Economy Class cabins on airlines like American, United, and British Airways, these Premium Economy seats should feel quite roomy.
Per Finnair:
“The new Premium Economy seat has been optimised for enhanced comfort and ergonomics, featuring memory foam cushions, a deep 8” recline, waterfall leg rest and 6-way headrest. Dedicated stowage for laptops and small personal items is incorporated to the design so that customers have everything they need at their fingertips throughout their flight.”
The new Premium Economy seat also features “a large and sturdy single leaf meal tray” for work and dining, as well as individual reading lights and universal PC powers and USB-A ports to help keep devices charged.
Each seat also offers passengers a new (to Finnair) in-flight entertainment system with 13” wide screens.
Bottom line
Finnair’s new Business Class and Premium Economy products are coming to Miami. An A330-300 aircraft retrofitted with the new cabins will take over the Helsinki – Miami route on 10 January 2023 and will continue operating this route for the remainder of the 2022/23 winter season.
