I booked a little jaunt off to Helsinki just for fun recently, as I hadn’t flown Finnair for a long time. Just weeks later, the airline has announced they will remove the Champagne in business class, just my luck.

Clearly it’s all about me and they’ve done this specifically to ruin the enjoyment on my flight. They are replacing it with sparkling wine, but really, my motto is “accept no substitutes!”

Finnair Remove The Champagne

The Helsinki based airline outlined the changes in a press release issued recently. From 19 April 2023, there will no longer be Champagne and it will be replaced by sparkling wine – on European services, that is.

Long-haul flights will continue to have bubbly on offer, as you can see from their business class menus here (I have to say I like how they publish the menus online!). That doesn’t help me though, as I will be flying within Europe.


In actual fact, I’m not really that bothered. I’m more excited at getting to fly on their Airbus A350, with the new Collins AirLounge seats. These do not recline, which is completely new for business class.

A friend of mine said they were hands down the most comfortable seats he had ever flown in, so it promises to be exciting. I’m sure I’ll be quite happy to live with the sparkling wine!

Overall Thoughts

Finnair is quite obviously trying to cut costs on their European services. Remove the Champagne and save some money seems to be the plan, though I would be curious as to just how much the switch actually saves.

It moves the oneworld alliance airline down in the rankings of business class within Europe in my mind. There are airlines that I fly (which offer Champagne) and airlines I don’t (which don’t). So be it, I’ll still do it once for the AirLounge!

What do you think of these changes at Finnair? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

Like planes? See my “Does anyone remember” series.
Flight reviews your thing? Mine are all indexed here.
Follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Featured image by BriYYZ on Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.