Helsinki Vantaa Airport

Had to transit through Helsinki twice during my trip to Europe and both of them were easy and smooth. The airport is compact but provide enough space for travellers. It is well organised and no transit take more than 15-20 min. Amenities are clean and well sign posted. The airport provide a good variety of shopping and food but it is expensive.

Very quick airport with all the essentials. Fast Wifi and a clear view out to the tarmac. Bathrooms are =clean and the airport is well taken care of. Can be busy during the afternoon departures, but otherwise just fine. Nice selection of restaurants and shops in both terminals also.

While in transit at Helsinki Vantaa Airport in August it was close to imposible to find a place to sit and rest. Corridors were very busy, the free lounge dirty and most space is given to shops and bars where a small bottle of water is at least 4 Euros. Needless to say I found no fountains. If this is Finnish comfort standards, I don't want it.

There is an air of chaos at check in areas. Very long queues. They seem to be endlessly under construction so every time I visit it is a bit different. The services are ok. Did not try the lounge. Not enough live boards. Currently sitting in a smoking area with no boards at all so no idea when boarding starts and nearest board a walk away. The new railway service from Helsinki city is a disappointment. The trains don't actually arrive at the airport but a distance away and then you have to walk a long distance deep underground to find a bus transfer stop and then have to wait for the bus to take you to the terminal. So not good for anyone traveling with lots of luggage etc and prepare lots more time than the old Finnair city bus which takes you all the way to the terminal - the railway bus drops you downstairs at arrivals so you also have to waste time to negotiate a way upstairs to departures. A disappointing service.

Everything works well and smoothly if you depart from Helsinki or have a domestic/Schengen to Schengen or non-Schengen connection. At peak times there might be long wait for passport control if not able to use automated passport gates. Usually security control staff is pleasant for departing passangers on terminal 2. If you are on transit from non-Schengen flight to Schengen flight then its not so smooth anymore. There's no more fast lane or priority lane security so I wonder how it's possible to make your connecting flight with minimum connecting time. I made it to my connecting flight but I had 1 hrs and 20 min to spare but wouldn't have made it if I only had 50 min. Still too many bus gate arrivals on long-haul flight during afternoon peak time. And there are too many smelly and dirty toilets around terminal 2. Clean ones can be found upstars at gates 26-27 and around gate 31 on Schengen side. Non-Schengen side is better as there's no smelly toilet. Still Finavia should focus more of making a passanger experience more pleasant than focusing on renting more space for duty free shops and selling ads on the walls around terminal buildings.

Taxi times at the moment on arrival are long as one of the main runways is closed. Security staff were smiling and friendly and baggage delivery prompt enough. On departure you check-in downstairs and then go through security on the upper level. T2 appeared newer and spacious but T1 which is where I departed from is the opposite. The check- in area is in the old part of the building with low ceiling and limited lighting. Once through security there are only a handful and shops and even fewer seats even near the gate areas. The gates between the terminals are interconnected so it was easy to see even in the newer area things are not much better. Its a shame that given its nice location surrounded by pine forests Vantaa is poor in relation to other Scandinavian airports I've used (Stockholm Arlanda Oslo Gardermoen and Copenhagen Kastrup) which are so much better.

I use HEL twice a year transiting to and from Asia. Almost always a good quick experience. It's expensive but what airport isn't? The recent building has left the transit signage a bit poorer but I am sure they'll fix it quickly. One surprise recently on CPH-HEL-SIN was no transit security from Schengen to non-schengen!

Arrived from LHR on Finnair. Pilot bumped into air-bridge when trying to park. They eventually brought some ice covered steps to the rear of the aircraft and bussed us to terminal. Long queue for taxi at 11.30 pm in the freezing winter weather. On return I had business class Finnair ticket and boarding pass which said "priority" boarding but was told couldn't use priority security because I had booked the ticket through the BA website and it was "sold as" a BA flight. Told to go upstairs to another (un-signposted) security area and joined a 20 minute queue. When got through security terminal was heaving - not enough space to move and they play that money-grabbing trick of making you snake through the duty free shop to get to the gates. Fortunately had Finnair lounge access which was very good. Turned out it was a bus to the aircraft. Bus was crammed and waited ages at aircraft before letting passengers off. Tarmac hadn't been de-iced and was quite treacherous. 5 mins outside in the freezing weather to queue to get on the aircraft. Flight itself was very good.

On arrival experienced planes parking on the tarmac and passengers were being bussed to the terminal. Nothing wrong with the practice except that all passengers were rammed into just one bus making it more crowded than Tokyo tube during rush hour. What an unpleasant end to a journey!

Helsinki is a great airport because it took us maximum 10 minutes to get our luggage dropped and go through the security check. The prices are sky high so that's a minus but otherwise Helsinki Airport is great.