Finnair launches a new route to Toronto, bookable with Avios

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• Scott says:

  12 Jun12 June 06:13

  Possibly a stupid question, but if you fly AY from LHR-HEL, do you remain in three non-Schengen area for the Toronto flight and not have to go near passport control?

  What about flying in from say DUB which is CTA, for the UK at least?

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    12 Jun12 June 06:21

    Neither the UK or the Republic of Ireland are members of Schengen.

  • Mzb says:

    12 Jun12 June 06:24

    When you land from Heathrow in Helsinki you are dropped off in the non schengen departure area and can board your onward non schengen flight.
    The return journey is different in my experience. When flying back from Asia you first go through transit security. I would imagine the same happens for north American flights?

    • riku says:

      12 Jun12 June 06:33

      Whether non schengen arrivals in HEL go through security before transfer depends on whether the departure country is considered “clean”. The UK, USA and Singapore are counted as clean but not other countries (eg if you arrive from Japan you will go through transfer security). I don’t know about Canada since it’s over 10 years since any planes arrived directly from there.
      “clean” has nothing to do with schengen or immigration, it’s about trusting the security of other airports.

      • EdP says:

        12 Jun12 June 09:58

        Getting quite off topic but I’ve always wondered about this. How do airports assess the quality of security of other airports? And why would you allow incoming flights from countries/airports where you think the security is subpar? Surely that implicitly means you think flights from those airports are carrying passengers who have not been properly screened and pose a hijack risk.

        • Rob says:

          12 Jun12 June 10:21

          Some airports impose secondary screening on passengers coming from certain airports, based on perceived risk.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          12 Jun12 June 10:22

          Governments decide.

          Which is why the UK considers everything other than UK domestics as ‘dirty’ whereas at for example AMS and HEL there is a list of flights of which some are ‘clean” and some ‘dirty’ depending on their origin.

          Of course this can be a logistical nightmare in needing to having gates where you can properly separate the two and send passengers into the right stream.

          But I don’t think your last sentence is quite correct. If a government thought security at another airport was as you suggest they wouldn’t allow those flights in at all.

        • John says:

          12 Jun12 June 12:34

          LHR T3 now allows some US arrivals to bypass security when connecting to T3 or T5 (non-CTA only). It is not guaranteed for any particular flight, but the aim is to expand this.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          12 Jun12 June 12:58

          @John – yes indeed but from my reading it involves following specific directions at the gate and then getting a bus to T5 after a BP check.

          Similar to when Little Red existed they had a similar system to meet those domestic flights at T2 then bus eligible passengers flying on VS&DL to T3 avoiding security.

          But there are still logistical issues in making sure only the right passengers use this system.

• Vit says:

  12 Jun12 June 06:18

  Rob, what is it behind the difference in surcharge while booking AY directly on its website or via BA.

  Eastbound, I find it cheaper to book AY via BA. Westbound, I have not looked at but you mentioned in the article it is cheaper to book on AY.

  • riku says:

    12 Jun12 June 06:37

    If you book an avios reward flight via Finnair plus then the cancellation rules are also different to booking via BA, not just the surcharge.

  • Rob says:

    12 Jun12 June 07:34

    BA adds one and pockets it.

    • Nick says:

      12 Jun12 June 11:35

      Errr, no they don’t. YQ is shared in full with AY under the JB.

  • Alex G says:

    12 Jun12 June 08:03

    Always check both options.

    BA was cheaper when I flew LHR-HEL-ICN but AY was cheaper for NGO-HEL-LHR.

• Matthew says:

  12 Jun12 June 07:37

  Looks like Play are ending the Stansted route too at the end of the summer schedule…

• Alex G says:

  12 Jun12 June 08:16

  Would be nice if AY went to Calgary. Or if BA reinstated the route. Perhaps with the drop in traffic to the USA, we might see BA operate more flights to Canada?

  • Panda Mick says:

    12 Jun12 June 08:31

    Just looked at Great Circle Mapper of the route: http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=HEL-YYC

    That would be epic in the winter.

    • John says:

      12 Jun12 June 09:06

      Well it depends on the winds

  • Gerry says:

    12 Jun12 June 22:41

    I don’t see much of a market for Helsinki to Calgary… it’s a small market, small catchment area.

    • Fennec says:

      14 Jun14 June 05:17

      YYC is Westjet’s hub which effectively operates as Canada’s second airline and has a U.S. Preclearance facility too so is a gateway to Western Canada, Rockies and even parts of the US.

• Luke says:

  12 Jun12 June 08:22

  So there goes the route my student son took to America.

  But I thought demand for visiting the USA was not being affecting by the current…ahem…difficulties there?

• Erico1875 says:

  12 Jun12 June 08:47

  Southwest are starting from USA to Iceland .
  Then onwards codeshare with Iceland air to Europe
  Play probably couldn’t compete with that

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