In praise of Finnair, in a family emergency

In my previous post I shared how my mother died quite suddenly in the summer. I also shared that it was a few days before I had planed to travel to Ireland anyway. But I got word my mother was critical on Monday and my original flights weren't until Friday. I wouldn't make it on time to say goodbye, if I stuck with my original flights, so I needed to change them.

Moreover, it wasn't just me planning to fly. My four kids were due to come with me too. My son and I had flexible tickets as we were going for a longer time. But my daughters tickets were not flexible as the plan was they spend just under three weeks in Ireland and then fly back to Japan.

I had heard several times in the past that airlines are very good in an emergency. But I had no personal experience. My husband rang Finnair the minute they opened on the Monday morning. What we didn't know until after the fact, was that there were air strikes that day. So the line was incredibly busy. We had to wait 90 minutes to get through to someone. But when we did, they were brilliant.

They were very sympathetic and helpful and changed all flights for the five of us to the next possible flight, without an additional charge. Because we transfer in Finland, that turned out to be the following day, Tuesday. There was a flight to Finland from Japan on the Monday night, but we would have been stuck in Finland for a day, as there was no suitable flights to Ireland. So it made sense to wait to Tuesday and have a smoother route. We got to Ireland on Wednesday, in time to say goodbye to my Mom.

I am very grateful that Finnair were so sympathetic and accommodating and made the situation as stress free as possible.