Similar to Schiphol, once off the aircraft you were able to walk the terminal, except the international section where the heavy aircraft were. The terminal had large windows where some reasonable photographs could be taken. We parked at the Southern arm of the L shaped Terminal and looked across towards the freight area, although heat haze did not help us at all. The commuters, such as the based Nordic Regional Airlines also parked up next to us. We completed the Nordic Regional Airlines fleet of 12 ATR 72’s before the afternoon was over. Finnair would take a bit longer. Looking at my records, I believe that only 9 aircraft of the 68 strong Finnair fleet were not noted in the 15 and a half hours that we viewed at Helsinki.

A word of warning if you have to collect bags. I appears that you had two sets of stairs / area’s A and B for bag collection. We were quite happy walking around the terminal and eventually decided to go and collect them. We went down the wrong stairs and you cannot go back to the correct ones. Anyway we explained this to the airport information desk and they were quite relaxed…………looks as this may be a regular situation passengers find themselves in. My two colleagues had to go to the correct area and all was well. However what I found strange was that a no point was any of us asked to present our passports?

Now landside, we made our way to the viewing deck. I was expecting a reasonably sized area, however the sign to the entry door stated only 20 persons at a time, there were certainly more when we arrived and more came. It was obvious that we were all coming to Finland for the same event. Eventually a military chap came on to the deck to kindly usher some people off, fortunately a group were just about ready to leave, so all was well. In my Helsinki photographs folder, I took a few shots of the deck which may interest you.

Having said that, it was a good place to view and I imagine that you would miss nothing. Not the best place for photography, as for one taxiway, shots have flag poles in the way, but you can get good views if they pass closer by. That is certainly the case with the heavy aircraft, easily viewed and photographs taken.

You can also view flyovers, however they are very much less than in the UK and as an addition, the odd movement across the field by training aircraft and helicopters were noted on occasions.

As an aside, we visited the Southern perimeter of the airport, overlooking the freight ramp each morning and evening that we we in the Helsinki hotel.

Photographs for this first visit as well as all subsequent visits to Vantaa are in this folder: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jlt_egcc74/albums/72157696654579981

Regards

John

Trip Airfield Albums     https://www.flickr.com/photos/jlt_egcc74/albums

Country Folders    https://www.flickr.com/photos/jlt_egcc74/collections

Oxford Aviation Group    https://www.oxfordaviationgroup.co.uk/future-tours/

Noted between 1520hrs and late from the hotel.