Review: Finnair Lounge Helsinki Vantaa Airport (HEL)

The second lounge that I stopped in at the Helsinki airport was the lounge that I could access via my oneworld status, which was Finnair’s lounge (although it used to be accessible via Priority Pass as well). When I was checking into the Finnair lounge, I asked a question about seating on my flight, and the lounge agent told me that she didn’t work for Finnair and thus couldn’t answer any questions about my flight, which I found very strange.

When I first arrived at the lounge, it was pretty empty, but even by the time that I left when the lounge was considerably busier, it still didn’t feel crowded. There was ample seating of various arrangements.

They also had computers and showers available for people to use (hopefully not at the same time), but I did not check out the shower facilities.

The food options were okay. The hot food mostly consisted of a soup with croutons and fried onions (fried onions make almost anything taste better, right?), and a dish that was confusingly labeled as chili con carne but looked more like rice with a couple of beans and maybe some ground meat. Probably not enough options to make a full meal out of it, but definitely better than US domestic lounges and enough food for a hearty snack.

Alcoholic beverage selections seemed limited to wine and beer. I apologize for knowing almost nothing about beverages as I mostly just stick to water.

 

The Finnair lounge is a good, basic lounge. There’s plenty of seating and it didn’t get overly crowded when I was there, the food options are decent, and wifi is fast. There weren’t any boarding announcements made in the lounge, and the flight monitors weren’t particularly helpful, but the Helsinki airport is small so it won’t be a very far walk to your gate.