Finnair ay090 late departing bkk- missed connections in hel

[bunyah]

Anyone explain why?? on a 10hr flight Bangkok to Helsinki a 20minute delay taking off CANNOT be made up to meet connections in Helsinki.

I frequently travel SYD/LAX or SFO return, on the much maligned United, and they have always made up any delays over the length of the flight (either way - with or against tailwind).

So much for the Reindeer Route and the efficient Helsinki airport. Now spending 3hrs in the sub standard Finnair Business Lounge awaiting flight on to LHR.

I'll stick with United and fly the other way around.

 

[eric2011]

Anyone explain why?? on a 10hr flight Bangkok to Helsinki a 20minute delay taking off CANNOT be made up to meet connections in Helsinki.

I frequently travel SYD/LAX or SFO return, on the much maligned United, and they have always made up any delays over the length of the flight (either way - with or against tailwind).

So much for the Reindeer Route and the efficient Helsinki airport. Now spending 3hrs in the sub standard Finnair Business Lounge awaiting flight on to LHR.

I'll stick with United and fly the other way around.

Now where did that dummy land

 

[andye]

Sounds like a very tight connection

 

[Mal]

Air traffic control not cooperating, strong headwinds, diversions on route due to weather. Multiple possible reasons.

 

[knasty]

Hel is setup for fast connections and when they work they save a lot of wasted transit time. Unfortunately this is the flipside. Take a look at Jb747s explanation in the Ask a Pilot thread as to why making up even one minute per flying hour isn't as simple as it seems. They may well hold an onward longhaul connection if there are many affected passengers but with Lhr there are many flights each day.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Looking at flightradar for AY90 - out of 14 days, only once did it do the flight in 9hrs56mins. The rest of the days, all between 10hrs4 mins and 10hrs16mins - which is somewhat remarkable in its lack of variance!

Not sure if there's a claim under EU261?

 

[drron]

Most American airlines program a longer flight time than required which is why you can leave 30-40 minutes late on a reasonably short flight and still arrive on time.
The Finns though would be meticulous.I would never try to have a short connection though.For example on our last trip we took the earlier CPH-HEL flight meaning a 5 hour stint in the AY premium lounge rather than the later flight with a 45 minute transit even though it was available for selection.

 

[MelUser]

From speaking to a captain. Air planes used to carry lots of spare fuel so could speed up burn more and make up time. These days bottom line and not wasting fuel is no 1 which means that an aircraft won't be loaded with fuel in excess of the planned route plus deemed emergency reserve requirements. Note a pilot is not allowed to use the reserve and if s/he does the paperwork is enormous not to mention the career ramifications

 

[Boca68]

Anyone explain why?? on a 10hr flight Bangkok to Helsinki a 20minute delay taking off CANNOT be made up to meet connections in Helsinki.

I frequently travel SYD/LAX or SFO return, on the much maligned United, and they have always made up any delays over the length of the flight (either way - with or against tailwind).

So much for the Reindeer Route and the efficient Helsinki airport. Now spending 3hrs in the sub standard Finnair Business Lounge awaiting flight on to LHR.

I'll stick with United and fly the other way around.

Got to say, if a 20 minute delay has caused a missed connection, then welcome to the real world of airline travel! Even Reindeer have bad days. But, I'd put it down to poor planning....but that's just me.

And having to "suffer" in the sub standard business lounge! :shock: A whole 3 hours! Must be beside yourself.

I've had missed connections before, thought , oh well, sleeping the night in the airport! Oh no, get kicked out by security because the airport shuts down at 1am. Slept in the bushes in the car park.

Suck it up , man!

 

[OATEK]

AY certainly have a lot of short transit connections. We decided to avoid the 50mins transit for HKG-HEL-CDG in March, and take a later flight to Paris. We could have made the short connection, but didn't miss not racing through the terminal, going through passport control etc.

The AY business lounges seem quite nice to me, but for a long wait (2.5hrs in our case) there were no decent food offerings. But we got comfortable and it didn't seem too long in the end.

 

[bunyah]

Thanks all - after some thought I was coming around to drron (above) advices - American airlines program a longer flight time (you can be 1 hour late departing LAX and still be circling over SYD awaiting airport to open.
The connection time was tight - 40 mins - but booking agent, and blogs, all assure you that Helsinki is most efficient and 40 mins is quite OK.
The disappointing aspect is the 20 minute delay departing BKK - and Thinnair (Finnair) would have known at departure we would not make our HEL connection. There was NO announcements from the flight deck, and cabin crew walked thru half hour before landing in HEL advising that a bloody lot of us had missed our connection.
Other airlines the flight deck will apologise for delay and advise they hope to make up time and land on schedule. The silence should have been a clue!!!
Thanks also to MelUser for your advices - though I have always found American airlines, and my regional Qantas, will advise they hope to catch up time over course of flight.
The 3.5 wait was grating watching earlier LHR flights depart but Finnair was unable to get us on those.
I'll happily stand up to defend poor old United from now on.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

AY certainly have a lot of short transit connections. We decided to avoid the 50mins transit for HKG-HEL-CDG in March, and take a later flight to Paris. We could have made the short connection, but didn't miss not racing through the terminal, going through passport control etc.

The AY business lounges seem quite nice to me, but for a long wait (2.5hrs in our case) there were no decent food offerings. But we got comfortable and it didn't seem too long in the end.

Did you do passport control in HEL or was it done on arrival in CDG? I've only ever lobbed in Europe and cleared on arrival due to no immediate onward connection. Is it like the USA where you need to clear at the first entry point?

 

[opusman]

I thought the AY lounge in HEL was quite nice actually! And when I was there last they were just about to open a sauna

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks all - after some thought I was coming around to drron (above) advices - American airlines program a longer flight time (you can be 1 hour late departing LAX and still be circling over SYD awaiting airport to open.
The connection time was tight - 40 mins - but booking agent, and blogs, all assure you that Helsinki is most efficient and 40 mins is quite OK.
The disappointing aspect is the 20 minute delay departing BKK - and Thinnair (Finnair) would have known at departure we would not make our HEL connection. There was NO announcements from the flight deck, and cabin crew walked thru half hour before landing in HEL advising that a bloody lot of us had missed our connection.
Other airlines the flight deck will apologise for delay and advise they hope to make up time and land on schedule. The silence should have been a clue!!!
Thanks also to MelUser for your advices - though I have always found American airlines, and my regional Qantas, will advise they hope to catch up time over course of flight.
The 3.5 wait was grating watching earlier LHR flights depart but Finnair was unable to get us on those.
I'll happily stand up to defend poor old United from now on.

40 minutes should be enough to connect in HEL. Even somewhere like HKG 45 minutes is more than enough time for a connection. You were just unlucky.

As for handling the delay - I guess with a 10 hour flight anything could have happened. The connecting flight to London could have been delayed an hour. I suppose the crew were in a difficult situation... tell you just before landing you will miss your flight and have you unhappy for 30 minutes, or tell you on departure and have you unhappy for 10 hours even through they have little idea whether the London flight is on time or not.

While I too would have hoped the aircraft would have made up the short delay, westbound flights are less likely to do so with headwinds.

 

[drron]

I thought the AY lounge in HEL was quite nice actually! And when I was there last they were just about to open a sauna

Depends on the lounge you go to.There are 3 AY lounges.
In the Schengen area for Europe flight the lounge is large and attractive but usually extremely crowded.Reasonable but not great food options.
In the Non-Schengen area ther are 2 lounges.One is the old lounge which is large and still better for plane spotting.The agents will usually direct you there.
But there is the Premium lounge which you can access if OWE or OWS.It has really good food and drink options.

So if arriving at HEL from Asia with hours in transit head for the Premium lounge.We would then head for the Schengen area about 60-90 minutes pre time but mainly that is so the shops can be closely examined.

 

[Timtammi]

This is making me nervous. I'm on AY90 next Sunday with a 45 min connection on arrival to our flight to

 

[Timtammi]

Oops sorry just checked and the connection is not as tight as I feared. Think we will be ok after all. Having said that my mum who is 72 and was travelling on her own made her 45 min connection in HEL from AY90 just fine only a few weeks ago. So it's doable if everything lines up.

 

[serfty]

Not sure if there's a claim under EU261?

There may be; claim-ability depends on the reason for the delay out of BKK and the amount for claim depends on what the final delay was for the OP's arrival into their ultimate destination.