I took a Finnair flight from London to Helsinki on an Airbus A350. I liked the themed decor and free blueberry juice, but found some features a bit basic.

Finnair is not thought to be a low-cost airline and the price of the ticket reflects that.

The cheapest Finnair return fare for this route is £173 ($212).

My ticket was £335 ($410) return in basic economy class, with no checked luggage. I bought the ticket the day before my flight, which likely affected the cost.

I was headed to Finland to report on a groundbreaking nuclear waste disposal site. Insider covered the cost of the trip, including this flight, per its reporting policies.

This company was founded in 1923 under the name Aero. Helsinki is its home airport, which serves as a connecting hub between Europe and Asia.

I took the plane from London's Heathrow on a Thursday morning.

I left at 10:20 a.m. local time for the flight of two hours, 55 minutes. Finland is two hours ahead of the UK, so my local landing time was 3:15 p.m.

This plane is Finnair's flagship, used for short and long-haul flights. It is a mid-sized plane that fits about 300 passengers.

The flight was not too crowded and there was an empty seat between me and another person.

I'm relatively tall, and I could fit in the seat without feeling wedged in.

The earphones were basic and had a two-pronged jack. I preferred to use my personal headphones with the screen.

There was a wide variety of recent movies to pick from, even though this was not a long-haul flight.

This was nice as I was sitting in an aisle seat, so didn't have a good view of outside through the window.

Marimekko has been a staple of Finish design since 1951.

Finns are proud of the franchise, which was created by Finland's Rovio Entertainment. There is a theme park dedicated to Angry Birds in the city of Tampere.

The Wi-Fi could be bought for fidelity points or money, here's what it cost:

• €7.95 ($8.50) for an hour.
• €11.95 ($12.50) for three hours.
• €19.95 ($21) for the whole flight, which was just over three hours. It's unclear why anyone would pick this one.

Drinks other than water or blueberry juice, as well as light snacks, could be purchased onboard.

The juice was launched in 2014, using the wild blueberries that grow abundantly in Finland and surrounding nations.

Per Finnair, the juice is made from wild blueberries, also known as bilberries.

Unlike US supermarket-bought blueberries, these berries are purple in the middle instead of yellow, and tend to be smaller.

In late 2020, the airline started selling the blueberry juice in Finnish supermarkets.

Marika Nieminen, the executive responsible for Finnair's food output, said at the time that it was a way to give Finns a taste of travel while COVID-19 had made it difficult to go abroad.

In 2021, the airline reformulated the recipe to remove grape juice concentrate and make blueberries the only fruit in the juice.

It was a little too sweet for my taste, though it was quite moreish and definitely worth trying.

Finnair is not considered a low-cost airline, so I was surprised that they didn't offer more options or any food.

The noise in the plane was kept to a minimum.

Flight attendants were courteous and professional. One attendant managed to quickly resolve a squabble between someone sitting next to me and a passenger who objected to him reclining his seat.