Labelled ‘Worst Airline in Europe,’ does Finnair live up to its reputation?

It was only after flying Finnair did I actually notice that Finnair was labelled the worst and ranked ‘Europe’s worst’ by a consumer report in 2025 by Flightright. This is apparently due to issues with compensation, punctuality and cancellations, so I am here to put that description to the test, having flown Finnair six times, four times in 2024 and twice in 2025. Join me as I explore the depths of the short/medium-haul experience Finnair has to offer and give it an overall rating at the end of this post.

Finnair is a staple for Scandinavian aviation, dominating the Finnish market and offering a key location for connections, with its extensive network across Asia, such as China, Japan and South Korea, making it a convenient location for onward travel across Finland, Scandinavia and the wider European continent. Finnair operates a large fleet, centering its operations around Airbus aircraft, the A330 and A350 for transatlantic, Asian and some European flights, for instance London Heathrow and Amsterdam, and the A319, A320 and A321 for European and domestic flights. However, Finnair does have a regional subsidiary, NoRRA, which they operate as a joint venture and utilise ATR72 aircraft for regional flights and Embraer E190s for regional and intra-European flights. It is worth noting that Finnair does not have a strict allocation of aircraft for certain routes, utilising various aircraft from its European fleet, except the ATR72, to operate any flights across Europe, both domestically and internationally.

With that, the first time I flew with Finnair was on the 13th of July 2024 on a flight from Dublin to Helsinki, laying over there before continuing to Kraków the morning after. I was scheduled to fly on their largest aircraft in their European fleet, the Airbus A321. My flight was AY1386 and the departure time being 18:00 and I was situated comfortably in economy class. For this flight and usually overall, I do not utilise check-in, because I usually travel with carry-on bags. Finnair is located in terminal 1 of Dublin Airport and operate two flights a day some days, one in the morning and one in the evening. I flew Finnairs newer Airbus A321-200, aircraft, this 8 year old example being OH-LZP. Finnair equips their A321s with 16 seats in business class and 193 in economy.

I wont bore you to death with all the details, as even I myself do not remember each aspect as it was over a year ago. However, we made it out of Dublin with a 24 minute delay, which we made up in the air. There is no real difference in the passenger experience to other flag carriers, the overhead panel is the same and there is no big difference. There is a convenient device holder and Finnair does offer WiFi onboard. This comes in different packages, as Finnair offers complimentary messaging WiFi and full access for a fee. The cabin on this flight was a little dirty, but nothing tragic. In terms of service, the crew does hand out a complementary cup of water of their signature blueberry juice, however no food. We did unfortunately not make up the full delay, touching down with a 13 minute delay, but at this point in the day, at 11pm, it did not really matter. So, my first flight on Finnair went fine, definitely not something of the worst airline in Europe.

So then, my second flight was on the 14th of July 2024, flying from Helsinki to Krakow on flight AY1161. Having arrived at night, the whole airport experience was really smooth. I did utilise the self-service check-in, which was empty to print out a boarding pass. After a near sleepless night, we began boarding for our 07:15 flight onboard their Airbus A320-200, this 24 year old being OH-LXC. It is worth noting that Finnair does not exactly possess the youngest fleet with the average age of their A319s and A320s being around 20-25 and E190s and a couple A321s closely follow. The A320 has four rows of business class and the rest in economy. We departed near ontime with a 10 minute delay. When I was flying a piece of the overhead panel was missing, but other than that, everything was exactly as in the A321. In addition, there is no in seat power at all nor a device holder. The flight itself was comfortable, as I managed to sleep for a bit of it and we touched down 5 minutes late. Once again, nothing of the worst airline.

I dont feel like repeating myself, but as I flew the return back to Dublin via Helsinki in August 2024, I flew their A319 and A321 of which both were perfectly fine. However, a delay of 50 minutes did occur on the Helsinki to Dublin flight with the A321, but we made up 20 minutes and landed with a 30 minute delay.

I had flown Finnair again more recently in December 2025 on the same Dublin-Helsinki-Krakow route and again, everything was perfectly fine. This time I flew the A320 and E190, the A320 being the exact same I flew on to Krakow the previous year, OH-LXC. Both more or less ontime and with the same service, friendly crew and onboard facilities.

To sum it up, I am not glorifying Finnair as the greatest carrier in the world, as we all know we would love to have a nice inflight entertainment system, some snacks and food and a better business class as American carriers have. However, in comparison to other European carriers, it definitely is not the chosen one, but also does not deserve the label as being the worst. For the first part about reimbursement, I cannot say as I did not have the necessity to request reimbursement and the same goes for cancellation. In terms of punctuality, Finnair can have a small hiccup here and there but generally it is not enough to destroy every passengers onward journey. In terms of ticket prices, I paid around 120 euros for a DUB-HEL-KRK or KRK-HEL-DUB journey, which is not too bad for two flights. However, I did check a ticket for DUB-HEL and it was also similarly 120 euros, reiterating my point as Helsinki trying to establish itself as a key transfer hub.

On another note I think the bad reputation Finnair has is largely down to weather. I think it makes sense that the issues that make this not a good airline are all end results of factors, mainly weather. Finland at the end of the day, is a Scandinavian nation which sees extensive Winter weather, so it makes sense that sometimes the weather can get too out of control and affect a vast amount of flights. As much as it is frustrating to have your flight delayed or cancelled, I dont think it should ruin the airlines reputation as the cancellation or delay was caused by weather. I believe it is what the airline does after this would be pervasive in public opinion. If indeed, there are issues with reimbursement and rebookings and so forth, then that could be troublesome for the airlines reputation.

In the end, I always enjoyed my flights on Finnair and I do not personally believe it to be a bad airline. I think that its reputation might be due to weather, but if you guys have any other experiences please let me know below, I’d love to hear!