Being an Aussie based flyer, almost one-third of my 1585 flights have been with the Australian carrier, Qantas. In addition I have flown every current and past One World carrier! This volume of flights means that I have achieved Qantas Gold for Life status (equivalent to One World Sapphire) in the Qantas Frequent Flyer program. I have also been Qantas Platinum (One World Emerald) for nine of the last ten years (I slipped one year). This status earns me a level of One World Priority benefits, which includes priority check-in, airport lounge access, priority boarding,…
Finnair
Tag Archives for Finnair.
Who has flown every One World Carrier?
I am curious to know how many people have flown at least one flight with every one of the 13 member carriers of the One World Airline alliance? There cannot be many fliers who have can claim to have checked off every One World Airline. As of now, I have now traveled with every One World airline except for S7. This alliance has taken me 37 times around the world, a a total of 1.5 million kilometres (968,000 miles). Altogether, that has been aboard 582 flights. From Hobart to Helsinki and Hawaii to Hong Kong…
100,000+ miles to 9 countries-Overview of My 2017 Travel Year
I remarked recently to a friend that this had been a very quiet year for me for flying. “A quiet year?”, he repeated with a wry smile noting this year I visited nine countries- mostly in Asia. Four were very familiar: Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and five were new for me: China, Finland, Japan, Lao and The Philippines. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them but would be less likely to return to Lao than the others. I flew 50 times this year -around once a week. This is lower than my average 88 flights per year…
To HEL and back – two more (almost) Heavenly Finnair flights!
Three years ago, I had four pretty nice flights with Finnair. On this occasion, I was particularly looking forward to trying their Airbus 350 for what would be my 1201st flight ever! Booking: 9/10 Finnair runs the only direct service from Bangkok to Helsinki (HEL). During the Finnish winter, the airline offers 16 services a week -mostly for Finns escaping the Northern hemisphere’s cold. From April, the number of flights runs a daily service with a morning departure from Bangkok at 0855 arriving Helsinki at 15:05. The return flight is an overnighter departing HEL at 17:35…
Valentines Day Singing on Board by Finnair
A heartwarming story from Finnair in the midst of the doom and gloom of the daily news. Ten of the crew on a recent AY005, Finnair’s Helsinki to New York flight were members of the Finnair Singers Club. They surprised passengers on the flight with a series of serenades and lullabies for Valentine’s Day. The Finnair Singers Club has been operating singing through the skies since 1949. This choir have performed all around the globe: Australia, Canada, India, Sweden and the USA. The singers performed a Christmas flash mob for Christmas 2015 at Helsinki Airport Gate…
Booked my first A350 flight with Thai Airways Royal Silk [updated]
UPDATE: December 2016: Sadly, due to issues with Thailand’s air safety authority, Thai has not been given permission to deploy A350s on Australian flights. So I am on a 777 instead. Still looking forward to the flight. I am very excited to have booked a seat on Thai’s new Airbus A350-900 Royal Silk Business Class product from Bangkok, Thailand to Melbourne, Australia later this year! Thanks to the last Avianca deal which gave me a 125% bonus on purchased miles! I was able to use these miles to get a seat at a very good price with Thai…
As I plan my first A350 flight, here’s where they fly.
The 350s have been steadily appearing across the world. There are now 24 Airbus 350s flying 21 routes with six operators: Cathay Pacific, Finnair, LATAM, Qatar, Singapore and Vietnam Airlines. Three more carriers will follow with Thai, China Airways and Ethiopian getting their first 350s in the next few months. The opportunity for me to fly on my first 350 is getting closer. With Thai Airways announcement that they will start their Airbus 350 service between Bangkok and Melbourne in September, it is looking likely I will be aboard a Thai 350 in December. Originally, Thai was looking at…
Finnair A350 connects Bangkok
Finnair switch their daily Helsinki-Bangkok-Helsinki service to an Airbus 350 service on Christmas Day this week. Offering three classes, the service is a great way cost wise and time wise to connect between Asia and Europe: Business: 46 flat bed seats in a 1-2-1 configuration with 78 to 81″ pitch and 21″ width Economy Comfort: 43 seats, 3-3-3 layout. 35″ pitch and 18″ wide Economy also arranged 3-3-3 with a 31″ pitch and 18″ width HEL (Helsinki) is well set up for connections to most of Europe. They are a member of OneWorld so picking up points is easy for…
TAM’s new Airbus 350
Brazil’s TAM air has welcomed the first of their 27 beautiful Airbus 350 XWBs. This follows Qatar’s receipt of the 350 in January, followed by Vietnam Airlines and Finnair. The 348 seat TAM plane has a two class layout: ‘Premium Business’ cabin with 30 forward-facing business class seats arranged 2-2-2. All seats convert into fully-flat beds and have a personal 15.4 inch HD video screens 318 seats are crammed into the Economy in a 3/3/3 layout admittedly with an 18″ seat width Their A350 has the same seats and cabin design as sister carrier LAN’s…
Air Finland
We almost made it through June without an airline bankruptcy. On Tuesday June 26, Air Finland, an airline and package tour operator filed for bankruptcy, ending all operations. 1,000 customers were stranded. They have been the 16th airline to collapse in 2012 (for list of collapsed carriers see here). Founded in 2002, Air Finland flew to destinations in Dubai, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. They state that they have flown over 400.000 passengers every year since 2005. Air Finland fleet had three Boeing 757s with an average age of 18 years. Each seated 219 passengers in a one class configuration. They…
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