Samsonite losing the grip

I’ve been a fan of Samsonite products for quite some time now. Usually the price-quality ratio is really good and I must say I love Samsonite’s worldwide guarantee.

So the other day I started to look for a replacement for my old Samsonite cabin trolley. It has been a true retainer and I’ve been more than pleased with it. Since the old one was a softsided version, not protecting the luggage in the same sense as a hardsided, I decided to look for one with hard shells. Indeed I have to admit that I was partly influenced by the Samsonite Cosmolite clip I found on Youtube (not only rational reasoning as you can see J).

After seeing the clip I was sold (you have to admit that the durability is quite impressive). I just had to get me one of those. So off I went, whistling the Postman Pat theme, in for some serious shopping!

My expectations were skyrocketing when entering the store. At first glimpse the almighty Cosmolite looked astonishing but after a few seconds of scrutiny the hard reality hit me straight in the face. A perfect product, in all other ways, was being ruined by a design flaw. Why, oh, why, dear engineers at Samsonite, did you not add the top handle found on most cabin trolleys?

Without the top handle the trolley is not as easy to handle, standing in a crowded aisle, as one with a top handle. For me this is a deal-breaker on a cabin trolley. What do you think, with or without top handle?

Cosmolite picture from: www.samsonite.com

Finnair goes Postman Pat

What the heck could Postman Pat and Finnair have in common one could ask oneself? Well, except for Finnair Cargo I guess there are no connections. But with that being said, I don't say there couldn't be more connections. Because there could!

Imagine yourself arriving late to the gate for a morning flight. Usually it means that there are no newspapers left for you, so you are forced to read through "Bluewings" for the xx time (btw. "Bluewings" rocks, it's one of the better inflight magazines around). However, even the best of magazines gets dull when you've studied it more thoroughly than you ever did with a book for an exam.

Enter "Postman Pat"!!! It would be a fantastic acknowledgement of Finnair's frequent flyers if they were able to "subscribe" to one of the newspapers being offered at the gate. Instead of picking it up at the gate, the newspaper they've subscribed to would be waiting for them in their seat. This would really add a personal touch to the flight.

I know some airlines greet their frequent flyers by name, and that's of course nice. But "Postman Pat" would take greeting the frequent flyer to a whole new level. What do you think?

Finnair flight AY 643 HEL-ARN

Departure: 8.06 (8.00)
Arrival: 8.13 (8.00)
Inflight service: None, slept the whole flight
Landing: Kind of hardish, not regular Finnair style
Seating: Sniffing the divider

Cosy flight, read the news papers before take-off. Dosed off during ascent. Woke up for a brief moment when some water was spilled on me. But hey, it wasn't coffee :-)

Finnair Plus proposes personal upgrade...

This morning I received the following SMS from Finnair Plus:

Usually this is a sign of the upcoming flight's economy class being full and Finnair would like to move some people to business class.

One could think this is a nice gesture from Finnair, at least I did the first time I received the SMS. I thought it was flattering to receive a personal message from Finnair, proposing an upgrade, but somehow I could smell a rat here. Is this really a "Win-Win" situation for both carrier and the frequent flyer?

Let's examine the proposal a little closer. For a flight time of 50 minutes and 398 km I would be charged 7000 points. First of all 7000 points means a discount of 500 points as the normal upgrade charge is 7500 points. But is the offer still worth it? Let us put it into a bigger context and do some benchmarking.

As you can see, the upgrade charge per km is approx 3 times higher than an upgrade charge to New York. In comparison with Lisbon the upgrade charge per km is 6 times higher! Why would I accept a deal like this? It's definitely not a "win-win" proposal. The big winner in this case is Finnair, because if someone accepts this deal Finnair gets to deduct some points from a frequent flyer instead of upgrading someone for no charge at all.

Dear Finnair Plus, when proposing deals like this in the future, make them a win-win proposal. Now I just feel insulted!

Seating preferences

Check-in done for flight AY 643 on Monday. No exit row seats availabe this time either. Being taller than the average bloke, exit row seating really offers that extra comfort needed to make the flight a good one.

It was a huge step forward when Finnair started to offer the possibility to prebook exit-row seats on longhaul flights against a small fee. I think Finnair should extend this possibilty so that it also would cover shorter flights! At least I'm willing to pay something for extra comfort. What do you think?

If prebooking of exit-row seats on shorter fligths is not doable I think Finnair should offer a possibilty for their Platinum & Gold members to add exit-row as a seating preference in their traveler profile.

Thank you Quantas for the picture.

Finnair flight AY 648 ARN-HEL

Departure: 18.29 (18.40)
Arrival: 20.17 (20.35)
Inflight service: More coffee
Landing: Finnair standard, smooth.
Missing the good old days when you at least got a bread roll to chew on.

We remind you that this is a non-smoking flight…

For years and years most flights have been non-smoking flights. Haven’t we all heard the following inflight announcement, “We remind you that this is a non-smoking flight. Smoking is prohibited in the entire aircraft, including the lavatories"! To me this announcement is crystal clear, capeesh, I get it.

No smoking means no smoking. Since this is clear for most passengers I would assume it would be clear for Boeing and Airbus as well. But no! They do insist on adding ashtrays to the lavatory doors!?

Dear engineers at Airbus and Boeing, which part of non-smoking didn’t you understand? If a flight is meant to be non-smoking you don’t need to put in ash trays. For a smoker, going to the lavatory, could be equalized to sending someone to “Temptation Island”. Aren’t the poor bastards, that fancy a smoke during the flight, more likely to be tempted to smoke when they see an ashtray? To me, It’s like showing a shot to a junkie.

So please Mr Boeing, next time you redesign the lavatory doors, skip the ashtrays and add nicotine gum dispensers instead.

Aunt Orange

The children's book author Elsa Beskow's most famous tale is probably Aunt Green, Aunt Brown and Aunt Lavender. However, the one aunt she left out of her little fairytale is Aunt Orange. Why, one may ask oneself? The reason is quite obvious, Aunty Orange didn't live back in the year of 1918. How do I know that...well it's because she's taking the same flight as I every Monday morning.

As I've been commuting back and forth to Stockholm for the last 3 years there are some faces on the flights that have become more familiar than others. One of these faces belongs to Aunt Orange. Why do I call her Aunt Orange??? The reason is quite simple, mostly she wears orange clothes and her hair is dyed orange (secondly I haven't got the faintest idea of who she is?). Don't get me wrong now, she's not the spitting image of a carrot, she's orange in a classy way.

She is one of the persons that has become my nodding friend, i.e. we never speak, we just nod in silent and mutual understanding. It's good to have a nodding friend, all of a sudden flying ain't so unpersonal.

To kill some time when waiting for departure I've played this little mind game called "Judge the book by its cover". As the name suggests it's the opposite to the old saying "Never judge the book by its cover". The rules are quite simple; create the life story of an unknown person based upon his/her physical appearance. Of course I've played this game with Aunty O as objective...

So who is Aunty when judging her by the cover? She's a successfull researcer within medicine in her mid 50's. Never been married. Plays flute in a folkband. She got promoted to senior researcher approx one year ago (this conclusion is based upon the fact that she used to fly coach together with me, but all of a sudden she started to fly business)...I could go on and on with the story of her life if it wasn't for one thing.

One morning I happened to to get a glimpse of some papers she was reading, and my story was crushed. Instead of reading some ground breaking medical reviews she was going through a pile of papers with a big bank's logo on them. All of sudden she wasn't this researcher that was about to come up with a cure for HIV, instead she became a common mortal that doesn't play the flute. But still, a common mortal all dressed in orange.

Thank you Aunt Orange for flying with me and making commuting much more personal.

Finnair flight AY 643 HEL-ARN

Departure time: 8.09 (scheduled 8.00)
Arrival time: 8.16 (8.00)
Inflight service: Coffee
Landing: Smoothest ever

I guess winter is on its way, first de-icing for the season :(

Flight deck announcements

Last week on flight AY 1919 from Helsinki to Aqaba the first announcement from the flight deck was, how shall I say it, not up for a flying start. Shortly after take off the captain's confident voice was heard over the speaker system: " Good morning, this is Captain Jones (name tampered) and with me here in the cockpit I have co-pilot Smith.........(a few seconds of dead silence passed)....sorry, this is Captain Smith and with me here I have co-pilot Jones...".
Mixing up your name with your colleague could either be a sign of severe nervousness or fatigue, conditions not ranking high when your supposed to take a plane full of passengers from point A to B. Well, I guess mistakes happen and the ride to Aqaba ended up being a real charm.

The importance of flight deck announcements are on some airlines underrated. The other week on a China Eastern flight from Shanghai to Singapore the crew on flight deck must have been mute. Not one single announcement, not a single word was heard from cockpit during the entire flight. Not even when encountering severe turbulence. In my world that's strange. I find it encouraging when the captain or co-pilot bothers to say a few words if something out of the ordinary happens.

On the other hand we have the pilots suffering from oral diarrhoea. The first five announcements can be funny but when the pilot has decided to guide you through your whole flight of 4 hours, being constantly "on the air" I think he should have applied for a job on the local radio station instead of flying passenger planes.

Too much or too less is never good. But if had to choose between mute or diarrhoea I would go for the latter one.

As a courtesy to the next passenger...

When going for an errand to the lavatory in a plane you may encounter the following little sign saying "as a courtesy to the next passenger may we suggest that you use your towel to wipe off water basin". Indeed it is an admirable thought but somehow I think the sign is needed for other purposes.

So please Mr Boeing, next time you redesign the signage in the lavatories skip the sign above the basin. Instead add one next to the flush button saying "As a courtesy to the next passenger may we suggest that you flush the toilet". That would really make a difference for the next passenger.

Best regards

The next passenger

Illaksi kotiin (home by night)

Inspired by Finnairs commercial "Illaksi Kotiin" (finnish for "home by night") I decided to start this blog. For the last 3 years Finnair has been the main carrier taking me home to my loved ones. Especially flight AY648 has been my personal "Rudolph", not letting me or my family down that many times.

This blog is intended to be a place for reflection on the ups and downs of traveling in the line of business. Most likely some thoughts regarding commuting between two countries for work will slip in every now and then.

Fasten your seat belts for take off!