We had Scandinavia on our minds for years. Finally decided to go for it in 2024.
Its certainly not the cheapest or easiest to plan- that became starkly clear on day of the planning( more on planning later) . In terms of information flow, clarity, and completeness, the region could benefit from masters of the game, like Switzerland. Nevertheless, it was fun planning and even more pleasing to actually land up there.
Code Share - an experience by itself!
We flew Indigo- Turkish Code Share from Mumbai. The Istanbul- Mumbai flight about 1 hour late (to be fair it may have been delayed because of the longer flight path to avoid much of Syrian, Iranian airspace), and boarding for 6E 17 Mumbai - Istanbul was chaotic (second time we had such an experience with Indigo) , with the result that we landed in Istanbul with less than an hour to our flight to Helsinki.
Funnily enough, when we first flew Indigo-Turkish to Prague in 2023, the aircraft were less than half full. But in 2024, 100% full. The combo is currently the cheapest to Europe and people seem to have cottoned on! The downside is that you lose the entire day in travel both ways as the Europe flights leave at 3-330pm Turkish time and you always reach Europe around 7pm local time. But then the fares are nearly 50% of Lufthansa, which surely has the best timings to Europe from India. As a good sensible Indian, time has less value than money!
Remember , though, you cannot do web check in for a code share flight as the Indigo- Turkish systems aren't interconnected. And if you want AVML, you need to call Turkish. Indigo won't tell Turkish. Quite quixotic. Also, remember, if by chance you dont get your second boarding card at origin in Europe, then at Istanbul, you have to go to the transfer desk, get your cards, and then clear security. If you already have the second boarding card, then you straight to the concourse. Peculiar!
Istanbul Grand Airport is nice and glitzy, but huge and very expensive! If you ever transited thru Frankfurt with just an hour between flights and panicked, you haven't experienced Istanbul yet! After landing (not at an aero bridge, so don't go blaming India all the time- happens overseas as well), it took nearly 25 min to reach a remote bay, from which another 10 min to the arrivals and then another 15 min to the concourse. That left us precious little time - about 40 min to the next flight. This, out of a total scheduled stop over of 3.5 hours. Istanbul airport is certainly nice, but if you get delayed, be prepared to run.
The Turkish flight to Helsinki, about 3.5 hours, was nice and smooth ( the Mum- Istanbul one was also smooth). Most surprisingly, the AVML ( Asian Veg Meal) was really good- in fact, far better than anything we had on Indigo (very poor). The peculiar thing is that international airlines want to have max inroads into India, and currently, Indigo is the market leader. So the international class travel product jars badly with the total barebones Indigo product.
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AVML meal, Turkish Airways Istanbul-Helsinki |
For the Indigo leg, expect nothing and you wont be disappointed. Just bring your own, and get off at the destination like a bus- AirBus! Thats fair enough, so long as you are aware of this.
This was our itinerary. May or may not suit your style! We would have loved an extra three days, but every day extra was a disproportionate jump in costs ( mainly hotels and local travel). Food is an entirely different story!
Why this particular routing? Its to do with the total airfares and visa. This routing had lesser air fares than the reverse; and we were reliably told by the trade that a Schengen visa from Finland was faster to get than from Denmark, which would have been our first port of entry in the reverse flow. As it turned out, visas from both were quickly received ( we heard about Denmark from a friend who followed the exact reverse flow as ours).
So there we were. All set !