Ordinary Gweilo

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More options

Air New Zealand will be flying from Hong Kong to London starting in October, which provides another interesting option.  Like Qantas, their flight leaves a bit too early in the morning (8.15) to be ideal, but competition has to be a good thing and they have more legroom in both economy and ‘premium economy’ than BA or Virgin. 

Or there’s Finnair, who will be flying direct from Hong Kong to Helsinki from the middle of May (currently they fly via Bangkok).  The selling point here is that the total journey time from HK to London (including transit) is 14.5 hours, which is only a little worse than direct flights and significantly better than almost all the other airlines with non-direct flights.  I suppose the reason is that Helsinki is on the route from Hong Kong to London (and maybe it’s a small airport as well). 

Finnair have a curious offer of an economy ticket for HK$10k – with a free upgrade to business class one way only.  The biggest negative is no seat-back TVs in economy, so you probably want to take a good book.

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6 responses to “More options”

  1. spacehunt avatar
    spacehunt

    I thought Finnair already flies direct to Helsinki? At least they did last July when I had to be there for a week.

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  2. Chris avatar
    Chris

    Well, Finnair are claiming that it’s a new service, but maybe this is just marketing hype and they are re-introducing an old service!

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  3. AG avatar
    AG

    I wonder if you have read a report of lost luggage in SCMP – City “take action” section on 1 May. An SCMP reader Peter Northan lost his luggage on a British Airways flight from Sweden to Hong Kong. Only 7 days after he reported the loss of lugguage, his luggage was returned in a delapidated state. A digital camera containing photographs of his business trip had been stolen.
    BA told Mr Northam that a reimbursement of essential items was available to non-resident passengers, but it was industry practice that this allowance was not available to passengers returning to their home on their final flight.
    I see you have particular interest in airline services and you are a regular SCMP reader, I wonder if you understand what it means by “With damaged checked baggage, the airline’s liability with regard to ‘irregularities’ does not extend to the valuable contents of the baggage, nor to any subsequent damage to them” in the reply from BA marketing manager. Instead of asking Alex Lo of SCMP to explain, can you help?
    The reply continues with saying “Regrettably, some customers may not be aware of this situation, and this may give rise to unfortunate misunderstandings. However, it is standard industry practice and customers are advised to refer to the General Conditions of Carriage as indicated on their ticket”.
    SCMP says “take action” is a column for anyone fed up with bureaucracy, frustrated with delays or furious with poor service. “Tell us your complaint and we’ll try to fix it…” Is Alex Lo going to fix BA or Mr Northam’s suit case in this case?

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  4. spacehunt avatar
    spacehunt

    Well the flight number’s still the same. Maybe they’re talking about more frequent services?
    But no way I’m not flying Finnair again; Helsinki’s airport has the code HEL for a reason. And Finnish food is, well… let’s just say Jacques Chirac was right.

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  5. Chris avatar
    Chris

    I think the flight number’s the same because it is still a flight from Hong Kong to Helsinki, but from the middle of this month it will be direct rather than via Bangkok.
    As for Helsinki airport, the transit time is so short that it hardly matters what the airport is like!!

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  6. horny avatar
    horny

    I hve never understood why ”standard industry practice” m eans that we have to take shit from the industry. We all could do well to do better.

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