Farnboro John
Well-known member
This report is dedicated to the staff of Finnair Customer Services who work very hard to look after distressed and sometimes angry passengers.
Very special mention is required for Owen (Pariah) of this parish who, at no notice whatever, supplied me with the information to go hunting for Siberian Jays among other things.
A mention also for Ken M who gave me the idea for the title.
Unlike previous reports I’m not going to do a full day-by-day blow-by-blow as many of the days were family holiday stuff but all the wildlife will get an account. Plenty of pix too.
Preamble:
After much discussion within the family we came up with a three-phase holiday in Finland. My brother Dave’s wife Taru is Finnish and she has family on whom we parked ourselves for much of the time. I am grateful for their generosity and their friendly company even with those for whom communication was almost impossible due to the language barrier.
Phase One: a week in summer cottages by a lake not far from a village called Sarkisalmi, itself not very far from an excellent Finnish nature reserve called Siikalahti.
Phase Two: a week in Taru’s parents’ house and summer cottage some twenty miles outside Savonlinna.
Phase Three: (just me) four nights bear-watching with fingers crossed for other stuff at Wild Brown Bear Oy’s Bear Centre East of Kuhmo about 2 km from the Russian border. A night at each end to recover after driving up and before driving down to Helsinki to fly home.
Sitting comfortably? Off we go.
Phase Zero.
On the Tuesday morning before the Sunday on which we were due to fly to Finland, I got a text from Finnair. It told me I’d been bumped off the flight.
I rang Dave to warn him in case he was in the same difficulty, but neither he nor any member of his family nor, for that matter, my wife who was on the same booking as them, were affected.
Just me. Because, of course, coming back on a different day I was on a separate booking.
Several increasingly desperate calls to Finnair Customer Services obtained sympathy (and a feeling from them that they had cocked up, because they hadn’t noticed that we all had the same name and were a group, which was what they were prioritizing for travel given the passenger cap at Heathrow.) But no change to their decision.
Abandoning that line of argument I did a quick Google and established that all the alternative direct flights to Helsinki seemed to be booked solid. The only thing I could find was a route Southampton – Edinburgh – Helsinki – Tampere and business class at that. Desperate times, desperate measures: I booked it and then rang Finnair Customer Services. I could imagine the rolling eyes at the far end but I just informed them of my new purchase and that I was getting off at Helsinki not going to Tampere, so I wanted my bag back at Helsinki. They said OK. I changed my hire car pick up from Sunday to Monday.
Phase One: 24 July, Sunday 1
Notwithstanding these revised arrangements I spent a miserable week still convinced everything was going to go wrong and was still somewhat stressed when I waved Maz off for her direct flight early Sunday morning: I had to wait to get a train to Southampton in the afternoon, then fly Loganair (Finnair’s “partner” for the route) to Edinburgh, spend the night in a hotel then fly to Helsinki Monday morning.
John
Very special mention is required for Owen (Pariah) of this parish who, at no notice whatever, supplied me with the information to go hunting for Siberian Jays among other things.
A mention also for Ken M who gave me the idea for the title.
Unlike previous reports I’m not going to do a full day-by-day blow-by-blow as many of the days were family holiday stuff but all the wildlife will get an account. Plenty of pix too.
Preamble:
After much discussion within the family we came up with a three-phase holiday in Finland. My brother Dave’s wife Taru is Finnish and she has family on whom we parked ourselves for much of the time. I am grateful for their generosity and their friendly company even with those for whom communication was almost impossible due to the language barrier.
Phase One: a week in summer cottages by a lake not far from a village called Sarkisalmi, itself not very far from an excellent Finnish nature reserve called Siikalahti.
Phase Two: a week in Taru’s parents’ house and summer cottage some twenty miles outside Savonlinna.
Phase Three: (just me) four nights bear-watching with fingers crossed for other stuff at Wild Brown Bear Oy’s Bear Centre East of Kuhmo about 2 km from the Russian border. A night at each end to recover after driving up and before driving down to Helsinki to fly home.
Sitting comfortably? Off we go.
Phase Zero.
On the Tuesday morning before the Sunday on which we were due to fly to Finland, I got a text from Finnair. It told me I’d been bumped off the flight.
I rang Dave to warn him in case he was in the same difficulty, but neither he nor any member of his family nor, for that matter, my wife who was on the same booking as them, were affected.
Just me. Because, of course, coming back on a different day I was on a separate booking.
Several increasingly desperate calls to Finnair Customer Services obtained sympathy (and a feeling from them that they had cocked up, because they hadn’t noticed that we all had the same name and were a group, which was what they were prioritizing for travel given the passenger cap at Heathrow.) But no change to their decision.
Abandoning that line of argument I did a quick Google and established that all the alternative direct flights to Helsinki seemed to be booked solid. The only thing I could find was a route Southampton – Edinburgh – Helsinki – Tampere and business class at that. Desperate times, desperate measures: I booked it and then rang Finnair Customer Services. I could imagine the rolling eyes at the far end but I just informed them of my new purchase and that I was getting off at Helsinki not going to Tampere, so I wanted my bag back at Helsinki. They said OK. I changed my hire car pick up from Sunday to Monday.
Phase One: 24 July, Sunday 1
Notwithstanding these revised arrangements I spent a miserable week still convinced everything was going to go wrong and was still somewhat stressed when I waved Maz off for her direct flight early Sunday morning: I had to wait to get a train to Southampton in the afternoon, then fly Loganair (Finnair’s “partner” for the route) to Edinburgh, spend the night in a hotel then fly to Helsinki Monday morning.
John
