Review of Lufthansa flight Helsinki → Munich in Economy

Intro

As I was expecting to stay another week in Tampere, Finland for work, I received a surprising notification from operations on the thursday prior to this flight that they will reposition me on saturday to Timisoara to continue with a different aircraft for the remaining two weeks of duty.

About an hour later I received a booking confirmation for my flight from Helsinki to Timisoara via Munich with Lufthansa. The first flight however was going to be the most interesting one as this flight was operated by AirBaltic with one of their Airbus A220-300.

Flight

Given that I was staying in Tampere, I booked myself on a 9 am train ride from Tampere to Helsinki with a stopover in Tikkurila to catch the local train to the airport. This ride itself takes only about 90 minutes and is quite comfortable.

With about two hours to spare for my departure to Munich, I reached Helsinki Airport. 

Given that I am traveling with hold luggage, I made my way to Lufthansa's check-in counters, which you could find on the left side of the terminal around the numbers 300.

Made myself to one of those self-service stations to print out my boarding pass and luggage tag. As operations booked me on an Economy Light ticket, the system did not allow me to buy a window seat or re-allocate myself a new seat upon check-in, which is a shame as I really prefer to sit on a window seat over an aisle. The system itself however was easy to use.

Upon performing all those duties, I decided to step in line which seems to not move for a solid 10 minutes with all ground attendants not helping any person. A few minutes later, they told us to move to the other side of the terminal as the system on their row did not function properly.

Eventually they moved us accross to counters 106 to 109, which I kind of lucked out as I was now one of the first to be handled and those who were first in line on the other side were now almost last.

With about 1 hour and 15 minutes to our scheduled departure, the ground attendants finally got the line moving, although they weren't really talkative nor efficient in their job. Eventually my luggage was dropped off and made my way to security, which took not longer than a few minutes to clear. 

After clearing security, I made my way up to the Aspire lounge which was closely located to Gate 28.

Entry of the Aspire Lounge near Gate no. 28.

The lounge however was quite busy and I came right on time as they were refusing people only five minutes after my arrival for it being full, however the lounge comes with a decent view over the platform of Helsinki.

Drinks were ranging from coffee, tea, soft drinks to alcoholic beverages.

Food offering was a bit minimal with a variety of cold salads, toppings, bread and yoghurts.

Lounge was quite small and compact and completely full, however it comes with a pretty nice view over the apron like I said before.

While sipping my coffee, I saw the aircraft that was going to bring us over to Munich. YL-AAS, an Airbus A220-300 of AirBaltic that was bringing us over to Munich on behalf of Lufthansa.

YL-AAS is a 5.1 year old Airbus A220-300 that was newly delivered to Air Baltic in May 2019 and can carry up to 145 passengers. It is also powered by two Pratt&Whittney PW1524G-3 Engines.

About five minutes to our scheduled boarding time, I decided to leave the lounge and head my way over to Gate 30, which was just a short walk from the lounge.

On our way to our gate, I spotted this Embraer 190 of Finnair that was ready to being pushed back for it's flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle.

The gate area felt a bit cramped with not enough seating and this part definitely did not feel spacious.

As this flight was not performed by Lufthansa itself, Lufthansa has made it pretty clear that this flight was operated by a third party on both their websites and TV screens with a promise that they do their utmost best to have at least one German speaking flight attendant on board of all those flights.

Loving the fuselage shot upon boarding the aircraft.

Upon being greeted by the friendly flight attendant, I made my way to seat 16D, which was my seat for today's flight. Legroom was absolutely fine for a two hour flight, however this seat's most useless feature was those tiny pockets who were only able to hold my universal bracket….. and perhaps a phone? 

The overhead panel is equiped with a tiny IFE used to display a route map and for safety videos, but also comes with an individual reading light and an air vent. Given the fact I'm sitting on the aisle seats, all features of the overhead panel were pretty useless as the distance from aisle to air vent and reading light was quite significant that it became ineffective. The IFE Screen was also pretty dark making it impossible for me to read anything on the display nor was I able to follow anything of the safety instructions. The photo below displays the true image of what I saw on the screens.

However the design of the overhead panel made the cabin feel very spacious and I kind of loved the lighting of the cabin with Air Baltic's colour scheme.

The table itself was also very sturdy and was movable.

The literature in the seat pocket in front of you contained a safety card, a buy on board menu, magazine and a card of Lufthansa explaining that this flight was operated by a partner on behalf of them. I also found a Finnish newspaper, however I think that that one may have been from a traveller that was heading to Finland or from a Finnish guy that was on the first flight to Munich as this specific aircraft did two rotations back to back to Helsinki.

Pushback was eventually done about a minute past our scheduled departure time and with a short taxi ride we were already rolling for departure to Munich. About ten to twenty minutes later, the flight attendants came by to serve us a complimentary bottle of water and their buy on board service which didn't seem to be popular as no single passenger in front of me opted for anything, but the water.

Decided to pay a visit to the lavatory in the aft of the aircraft, which surprisingly was quite spacious and was in a decent to clean state.

However the toilet wasn't particularly fancy with no amenities other than some soap and tissues.

Took a photo of the galley in the aft, which wasn't overly large, but organized.

Given that the cabin was full for today's flight with the last row being left empty for flight attendants I assume, it gave me a chance to capture the seat's design of Air Baltic. Still surprised that those seats were not bookable online though or being selected via online check-in.

The cabin in-flight had a change of mood and went more to an azure blue/greenish colour.

About twenty minutes to landing, the flight attendants came by to serve us a chocolate.

The chocolate itself isn't anything fancy nor something I highly recommend, however Lufthansa did do some effort to put their design on it.

Landing was about five minutes ahead of time and we disembarked at our gate right on the scheduled arrival time of 14.20. Disembarking the aircraft went chaotically as many people tried to force their way to the front of the aircraft to catch their tight connection…. The issue is that most passengers had tight connections making the entire experience rushed and chaotic.

As our aircraft parked at the remote terminal, I had to position myself to the main terminal via underground train. This isn't the most convenient way to get to your next aircraft if you have a tight connection.

Eventually made my way up to the main terminal about five to ten minutes later.

Next flight will continue from here.

Thanks for stopping by!