Tokyo; Monday, 21 April, 2025

From the warm barmy evening in Tokyo where it had been about 18c, even at 23:00, it was a bit of a shock to the system when I switched the inflight entertainment system onto the front wheel cam and watched the rain lash against the plane as we approached Helsinki through a very heavy, and cold, set of clouds.

Thankfully the plane landed on a gate with an airbridge so we were under cover all the way into the terminal building and through to the transfer security control.

Finnair’s selling point is that due to Helsinki’s position it’s possible (or at least would be possible if Russian airspace was available for most flights) to use the arctic route to reach the Far East, and so every night around midnight, after collecting passengers from around Europe into Helsinki, planes take off for the likes of Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and Bangkok.

A few hours later, around 5am passengers pour back into Helsinki in the opposite direction and within minutes of landing have been processed through transfers and are spat back out into the departures hall for connections back out to Europe, with the likes of London, Amsterdam, Rome, Frankfurt and Paris all being served by the same widebody jets that have just come in from the Far East spreading the load. It’s a very slick operation and it ran like clockwork for me.

Having cleared transfer security it was a short walk to the lounge and, being one of the first people through, I was able to grab a shower straight away. It’s amazing the difference a shower and change of clothes after an overnight flight makes and feeling refreshed I was able to tackle breakfast number 2 of 3 of the morning.

About an hour in the lounge and then it was time to head on down to the gate to pick up the flight back over to London (the plane I had arrived in from Narita on was heading to Amsterdam, I was getting on the plane that had come in from Singapore) and the end of my adventure to the Far East.