Flying Domestic
I went for a daytrip to Hellsinki and wanted to come home fast so I flew back. It was my first time flying domestic and oh what a wonderful way to travel it is, just expensive of course.
It takes about 9 hours with a bus or train between Hellsinki and Oulu (I don’t actually live in Oulu but that’s the closest city to me), and only an hour with a plane. If your time is money, I’d take the plane. There are multible flights back and forth every day so it’s really easy to find a suitable one.
Hellsinki airport is very spacious, clean and operates smoothly so it’s no trouble to go through security, maybe do a bit of shopping and grab a bite to eat.
I’m always super early to anything, especially flight and now more than usual intentionally, so I got some snacks and found a peaceful corned to hang out in at the airport. I listened to audiobooks, knitted, ate and of course people watched.
I’m pretty sure our actual flight time was less than an hour so there really was not much needed in terms of entertainment, I just knitted for a bit and the plane was already tipping back down.
For those of you who are plane nerds, the aircrafts was an Airbus a320 which seats 174 passangers. I’d say it was at about 90% capacity, the first six rows where I was were seated so that almost all the middle seats were empty for more comfort.
Sadly my flight was after sunset so it was all dark by the time we took off, I would have loved to see the our dear homeland from above. I have flawn to and from Hellsinki many a times but then you only really see a bit or the most southern part of Finland and that’s it. Now I saw some scattered lights here and there surrounded with pitch black and that’s all. Next time I’ll definitely try and schedule a daytime flight, or if it’s summer then it doesn’t matter because it’s bright all day and night.
Domestic flights are an experience we should ask try at some point in our lives. Only ever done so twice here in the U.K. both times from Heathrow, two different destinations, Edinburgh and Leeds. Two different aircraft, one a normal Boeing and the other a prop powered plane and that was amazing.
I actually thought that my flight would be with a prop plane and was both nervous and excited. I think they might change the plane according to how high in demand that route is on any given day.
I've flown from Tampere to Stockholm on a plane with turboprop engines. It was a pleasant experience and the flight time was only about an hour or less. For connections between Finland and the rest of the Nordic countries, small planes like that are perfect.
I checked the fastest train connection from Oulu to Helsinki and it was 5 hours 27 minutes. The slowest was 9 hours 32 minutes but that was a night train.
The fastest bus connection was 8 hours 10 minutes. (Horrible, if you ask me.)
Of course, you have to add travel time from home to Oulu railway station to the total and pretty much only that if your destination is Central Helsinki.
I've flown from Tampere to Helsinki as a child. Our destination was Vancouver, BC. There were two stops: Helsinki and London. The flight between Tampere and Helsinki was quite short, only about 25 minutes or something like that.
Oh, thanks for correcting me! I don’t travel by train often and I must have looked very specific time slots and just assumed that is how long it takes always. Now I might actually consider train as an option sometimes 😁
Tampere to Helsinki with a plane is super fast, nothing much between the takeoff and landing. How long was the flight between London and Vancouver?
The train connection between Oulu and Helsinki usually costs about €50. So it's cheaper. Of course, it's a lot slower. But it might not matter if you stay in Helsinki for a few days. For a short trip, the flight could actually be cheaper because the train trip wastes half a day one way. A night in a Helsinki hotel usually costs upwards from €100 to €150. The flights cost upwards from €85 or so.
The flight between London and Vancouver was pretty long. Something like 10 hours. There was no direct flight from Helsinki to Vancouver and I guess there wasn't a direct flight from Helsinki to Seattle at the time like many years later, either, because we could've taken it because we had US visas. In fact, we visited the US, too.
Oulu ... now that's North!!!
I have occassionally did some work in Trondheim (Norway) and thought that was pretty far North. I've been up to Dawson City (Yukon, Canada). But you are still further North.
At this time of year, are there any flights that take off and land when it's daylight? They must be pretty short flights.
Yes pretty north when you look it up on a globe map, but I’m only halfway up if you look at how tall Finland is 😅
Oh most definitely, we have about 5,5hours of daylight here, and hour and a half more in Helsinki, and the flight take an hour so there are plenty of options if you wanna see the sights while flying.
I recently had a flight during night too and even though most of the time you won't see anything outside the window, the view with the city from the top during the night is pure awesomeness :)
Yes it is prettt cool but Finnish cities are so darn small that there really isn’t much to see 😅
Knitting, on a plane? I'm surprised you didn't get accosted for having lethal weapons onboard!
They should be allowed but I have heard that some individual officials have taken them away, but it’s rare.
Could most definitely be worked like a garrote because I have needles with a wire between them.
I suppose that we may have a higher propensity to have knitters of a homicidal nature here in Australia.
You could achieve the garrotte with any number of items of clothing. There’s so many things that you could justifiably carry onto a plane (guitar strings, for instance) that would certainly be capable if you did indeed require an emergency garrotte.
Not sure why you’d need such a thing, but if there’s a rival knitter who didn’t get their stuff confiscated, and you’re travelling to a knitting tournament, which is also a guitar tournament.. then I guess it makes sense.
I’m quite over planes, though; last time I went on a trip I just decided to drive 8 hours each way. At least there were no knitters in the car.
Haha nice post! I'd love to visit Helsinki pretty soonish as well.
It can be a nice enough city but prepare for the expensive food and drinks. From what I remember from visiting Berlin a few times was that eating out was soooo cheap.
Because Berlin is just in its own universe! :D
I am living in the Munich area and go to Zurich plenty of times lately. I think the costs will not shock me. Rather the weather might just kill instantly xD
Compared to Zürich, yeah you won’t be surprised by the food price 😅
Cold is no problem if you know how to dress for it.
I hate to put on endless layers, less is more to me. I don't even own a thick coat, always end up buying rather thin clothes.
You don’t need a lot of layers if you have the right materials :)
I'm glad you had a safe flight - that is an impressive time savings.
Another nice thing about flying North or South is no time zone change and no jet lag.