NickW
May 28, 06, 11:47 am
A not so quick report on Swiss Business; I've never flown Swiss intercontinental before, but their new membership in the Star Alliance and a bmi promotion for double miles encouraged me to give them a go.
LHR-ZRH LX327 J/3A 26/05/2006
Pre-departure
I arrived at T2 about an hour and a half before my flight because I had a Ticket On Departure booking and this can mean queuing twice before you're checked in. I don't really know why; my itinerary was straightforward and all booked on LX. You really would think these sorts of itineraries would be e-ticketed these days.
I waited for about five minutes to see a ticket agent, who then very quickly found my tickets for me. Lots of people wanting to standby for earlier flights seemed to be queuing at the ticket desk.
There was one desk serving business class passengers and I think two or three serving economy. As always, the two people in front of me seemed to take an age. Whenever I check-in, it's always a matter of just answering the security questions and checking that I've got the seat I wanted. Yet some people seem perfectly capable of spending 10 minutes negotiating with the check-in agent. What are they talking about?
After standing in line for about 10 minutes, I was finally called over to one of the economy desks. It seems Alitalia is handling Swiss check-in, as all of the staff were in AZ uniforms. Check-in was swift, and I got boarding passes for the LHR-ZRH and ZRH-HKG sectors. As a matter of interest, my carry-on was weighed (8kg, no problem apparently). This is only the second time in a couple of years, and the other time was with a Swiss intra-European flight too!
LX uses the Servisair lounge at T2. Frankly, this a pretty poor way to greet your premium passengers. I guess I could've gone to the LH Business lounge but that's frankly not much of an improvement. The Servisair lounge is also the Priority Pass lounge at T2 so I've been there before and never been particularly impressed.
Today, it looked like a bomb had hit it. Nearly every table was covered in the empty wrappings of pretzels and peanuts as well as dirty glasses and newspapers. The staff were busy trying to clear up at least - I suppose some particularly messy group had just been through.
The lounge offers the standard free-pour drinks (bonus marks for having Bombay Sapphire) and cocktail snacks. i.e. nothing fresh at all. It is divided into a smoking and a non-smoking section, and in my opinion is really starting to show its age. It's relatively cramped, the furnishings are not of very good quality etc. There's also one place that I could find where I could plug my laptop in to charge. Oh, and to get to the nearest bathroom you have to fight your way through the public restaurant/bar area that's outside the lounge access corridor.
My boarding pass indicated the flight boarding at 1810, but there was no indication of a gate at that time. Hmm. Eventually, boarding was called and I wandered off to gate 38 - which is one of those that's basically in T1.
Boarding
Despite the indication that the flight was boarding, unsurprisingly nothing of the sort was taking place. About ten minutes after I arrived at the gate, pre-boarding for families with children was called. About half the plane, by the looks of it. This followed by a call for economy rows 22+, oh and 'business class passengers at their leisure' - again, the ridiculous nonsense which is priority boarding on intra-Europe flights. Again, the gate area seemed to be run by Alitalia staff.
I found my way to my seat - 3A. This Swiss A321 is configured 2-3 in business class in common with most other European airlines. Also in common with those airlines, the A/C side is much to be preferred with more space and no shared arm rest, due to the vestigial B seat.
The product
The seats seem absolutely identical to BA's in Club Europe - firm blue leather, with the same coat hooks even. Swiss obviously has no problem with load factors on this route: the flight was 'full, full, full' (to quote the flight attendant who must've repeated this about four times on the PA), with about 6 or 7 rows of business class.
Unfortunately, the delay meant we had missed our slot. We waited on the ground for about twenty minutes, before finally pushing back almost an hour after our scheduled departure time. At this point, I was feeling distinctly worried about my connection, since technically I only originally had 1h15m to connect in ZRH.
A towlet in a plastic sachet was offered (thanks but I'd prefer a hot towel), as well as a glass of water or orange juice.
Very soon after take off, the purser came on the PA and indicated that due to our short flight time (only 1hr), he was confident that all our connections would be possible. About ten minutes later, he came back on and indicated that indeed all our connections were 'granted' (although listening to the same announcement in German, I believe he meant guaranteed!).
Food
A snack was offered: a slice of cheese quiche with green salad and a chocolate and cherry dessert, as well as warm bread. In fact, for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long I was actually addressed by name: "Would you like something to eat, Mr NickW?". I ate the quiche, which was fine, but knew I'd be eating again soon so passed on the dessert and the wine. The chap next to me hit the champagne in style though.
As promised, we did indeed land much earlier than our late departure would suggest, meaning I should have no problem in making my connection.
Summary
Shame about the lounge, typical shambolic boarding, good in-flight service, food not as good as BA CE, about the same as AF/KL, bonus marks for actually looking up my name.
ZRH-HKG LX138 J/9K 26/05/2006
Pre-departure and boarding
Due to the late arrival of the incoming flight, I didn't have time to check out any of the lounges at ZRH. I had to dash from gate A72 to E34, and arrived just about a minute before boarding was called. The gate area looked practically deserted, hinting at a light load. When boarding was called, First and Business class used one side of the gate and Economy the other. I was about the fifth passenger aboard the Swiss A340, on what appears to be latest flight scheduled to depart from ZRH, at 2235. I often connect through CDG and it's a very impressive contrast. If they can manage to keep boarding this orderly for fuller flights (see below), then this is great.
The product
First impressions of the cabin were positive - the muted colour pallet is soothing on the eye; the fabrics are conservative but still stylish. I settled in to 9K, a window seat towards the back of the business cabin.
As an aside: some web guides will tell you that row 8 window seats don't have a window, but that's not true - they do have one, but only one (as opposed to the two you get in the other rows).
The width of the seats is ample, and I immediately felt comfortable. Each seat has a gooseneck LED light (which is good for reading at night without disturbing those around you) and in-seat power, which is of the AC outlet variety rather than Empower. There is no storage in the seat itself, but there is a cubby hole for shoes in the seat in front and an additional storage area above that; fine for glasses, wallet, bottle of water...
Pre-departure juice, water or sparkling wine was offered. This time I had a glass of the sparkling wine, which was reasonable. As our scheduled departure time approached, the seat next to mine was still not occupied - nor indeed were most of the others in business class. Eventually, when the doors were closed, the load in J was no more than 25-30% - I suppose this is not entirely a surprise for the Friday evening flight.
I didn't wander down to economy, but since the whole flight boarded through 2L I did get to see roughly how many people came aboard, and I guess it was generally a pretty light load.
Amenity kits were offered (a smart black zippered bag with a SWISS tag), with the usual contents (eyeshade, ear plugs, toothbrush, toothpaste). It seems Swiss doesn't include the other random junk (like combs or shaving kit) by default although these can be requested from the cabin staff.
Take-off was on time.
Food and drink
Menus were distributed soon after take-off. Swiss offers a single menu as both 'light' and 'regular' dining - for the light version, omit the main course and the dessert.
I didn't keep the menu, but as I recall the offering was:
Starter: Mixed antipasto (artichoke, beans, mushrooms etc. in an olive-oil dressing) - quite small, cold and unimpressive.
Soup: Asparagus cream - very good, served in a cup.
Main Course: Choice of:
Fillet of beef with morel sauce, asparagus tips and linguini - as usual a bit overcooked, although still reasonably tasty, the linguini was a bit out of place I thought.
or
Some spiced noodle dish - which I didn't have so can't comment on
Cheese: A selection of Swiss cheeses - exactly two to be precise and quite small portions at that.
Dessert: A single tiny chocolate/fruit tartlet - like about a mouthful and a half!
A linen table-cloth was laid before the meal. A tray was served with the starter and the cheese already plated. The soup, main course and dessert were offered from the trolley. In a nice touch, an example of each of the mains was shown so you could choose between them having seen them. Metal cutlery including knives was used. Warm bread was offered; a nice touch was that as well as butter, one could have olive oil for dipping - a small dish was given for this purpose.
I had a couple of glasses of the Nicolas Feuillatte champagne with the starter and the soup, before moving on to the 2003 Kaapzicht Cabernet Sauvignon (which I already knew I liked, having drunk it in SA earlier this year when touring Stellenbosch). There were two Swiss wine choices (I guess that's mandatory given I'm flying Swiss) which I passed on, and the other white was a Coppola Estate Pinot Grigio I think. Regular refills were offered.
Overall the meal was good if not outstanding: the dessert could stand some enhancement in particular.
IFE
Swiss has a video on demand system. I often have a feeling of trepidation about these as they often seem to spend about as much time crashed and non-functional as working. This one was fine however. The range of films on offer was pretty eclectic (you can download this from the Swiss site so I won't repeat it): certainly not all your usual Hollywood fare. I watched Moonlight in Tokyo which is much better than it sounds from the blurb during my meal. The screens fold out from the seat on a pivot and are about 10" diagonally. The video quality was very good and I appreciated being able to pause the film while conversing with the staff. I didn't try the supplied headphones, but they didn't appear to be noise canceling - I stuck with my Bose QC2s.
Sleep
I found the new business class seats quite comfortable for sleeping. They are of the 'flat but not horizontal' type. I got about five and a half hours sleep before waking up due to dehydration (too much booze not enough water and the dry aeroplane air), which is pretty good for me. I didn't feel like I was sliding down these seats as much as I did with KLM or AF. Maybe it's the fabric? Not as good as BA NCW which remains pretty much my gold standard for business-class comfort, but pretty damn good.
Due to the design of the seat, which extends into a recess in the back of seat in the row ahead, I would imagine that getting out to the aisle from a window seat would be pretty tricky with the aisle seat in the sleeping position.
Breakfast
This was quite early, like about two and a half hours prior to arrival. I know some people like to get every possible minute of sleep, but as this is a late afternoon arrival in HKG I think it's OK. It consisted of a small fruit salad, yoghurt, croissant or bread with jam and then a hot option. I had the omelet with veal chipolata and (uh) spinach. This was again fine if not amazing, but it all added up to a reasonable amount of food. Tea, coffee and juice were all on offer.
Summary
Good seat for sleeping, if not the best. Unobtrusive and generally helpful crew (not standout for cheerfulness etc. but professional - more AF than BA). Good if not great food. One of the better IFE systems with a good choice of films (in my opinion).
I'd definitely fly Swiss J for intercontinental again. I have to give F a try on an award ticket some time too.
The other thing to mention is that the price is definitely right - the basic fare for my r/t was £1,405 - which compares pretty well with BA WT+ (i.e. premium economy) at £1,082, never mind the published CW fares. This is actually the cheapest published business class fare on this route at the moment.
LHR-ZRH LX327 J/3A 26/05/2006
Pre-departure
I arrived at T2 about an hour and a half before my flight because I had a Ticket On Departure booking and this can mean queuing twice before you're checked in. I don't really know why; my itinerary was straightforward and all booked on LX. You really would think these sorts of itineraries would be e-ticketed these days.
I waited for about five minutes to see a ticket agent, who then very quickly found my tickets for me. Lots of people wanting to standby for earlier flights seemed to be queuing at the ticket desk.
There was one desk serving business class passengers and I think two or three serving economy. As always, the two people in front of me seemed to take an age. Whenever I check-in, it's always a matter of just answering the security questions and checking that I've got the seat I wanted. Yet some people seem perfectly capable of spending 10 minutes negotiating with the check-in agent. What are they talking about?
After standing in line for about 10 minutes, I was finally called over to one of the economy desks. It seems Alitalia is handling Swiss check-in, as all of the staff were in AZ uniforms. Check-in was swift, and I got boarding passes for the LHR-ZRH and ZRH-HKG sectors. As a matter of interest, my carry-on was weighed (8kg, no problem apparently). This is only the second time in a couple of years, and the other time was with a Swiss intra-European flight too!
LX uses the Servisair lounge at T2. Frankly, this a pretty poor way to greet your premium passengers. I guess I could've gone to the LH Business lounge but that's frankly not much of an improvement. The Servisair lounge is also the Priority Pass lounge at T2 so I've been there before and never been particularly impressed.
Today, it looked like a bomb had hit it. Nearly every table was covered in the empty wrappings of pretzels and peanuts as well as dirty glasses and newspapers. The staff were busy trying to clear up at least - I suppose some particularly messy group had just been through.
The lounge offers the standard free-pour drinks (bonus marks for having Bombay Sapphire) and cocktail snacks. i.e. nothing fresh at all. It is divided into a smoking and a non-smoking section, and in my opinion is really starting to show its age. It's relatively cramped, the furnishings are not of very good quality etc. There's also one place that I could find where I could plug my laptop in to charge. Oh, and to get to the nearest bathroom you have to fight your way through the public restaurant/bar area that's outside the lounge access corridor.
My boarding pass indicated the flight boarding at 1810, but there was no indication of a gate at that time. Hmm. Eventually, boarding was called and I wandered off to gate 38 - which is one of those that's basically in T1.
Boarding
Despite the indication that the flight was boarding, unsurprisingly nothing of the sort was taking place. About ten minutes after I arrived at the gate, pre-boarding for families with children was called. About half the plane, by the looks of it. This followed by a call for economy rows 22+, oh and 'business class passengers at their leisure' - again, the ridiculous nonsense which is priority boarding on intra-Europe flights. Again, the gate area seemed to be run by Alitalia staff.
I found my way to my seat - 3A. This Swiss A321 is configured 2-3 in business class in common with most other European airlines. Also in common with those airlines, the A/C side is much to be preferred with more space and no shared arm rest, due to the vestigial B seat.
The product
The seats seem absolutely identical to BA's in Club Europe - firm blue leather, with the same coat hooks even. Swiss obviously has no problem with load factors on this route: the flight was 'full, full, full' (to quote the flight attendant who must've repeated this about four times on the PA), with about 6 or 7 rows of business class.
Unfortunately, the delay meant we had missed our slot. We waited on the ground for about twenty minutes, before finally pushing back almost an hour after our scheduled departure time. At this point, I was feeling distinctly worried about my connection, since technically I only originally had 1h15m to connect in ZRH.
A towlet in a plastic sachet was offered (thanks but I'd prefer a hot towel), as well as a glass of water or orange juice.
Very soon after take off, the purser came on the PA and indicated that due to our short flight time (only 1hr), he was confident that all our connections would be possible. About ten minutes later, he came back on and indicated that indeed all our connections were 'granted' (although listening to the same announcement in German, I believe he meant guaranteed!).
Food
A snack was offered: a slice of cheese quiche with green salad and a chocolate and cherry dessert, as well as warm bread. In fact, for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long I was actually addressed by name: "Would you like something to eat, Mr NickW?". I ate the quiche, which was fine, but knew I'd be eating again soon so passed on the dessert and the wine. The chap next to me hit the champagne in style though.
As promised, we did indeed land much earlier than our late departure would suggest, meaning I should have no problem in making my connection.
Summary
Shame about the lounge, typical shambolic boarding, good in-flight service, food not as good as BA CE, about the same as AF/KL, bonus marks for actually looking up my name.
ZRH-HKG LX138 J/9K 26/05/2006
Pre-departure and boarding
Due to the late arrival of the incoming flight, I didn't have time to check out any of the lounges at ZRH. I had to dash from gate A72 to E34, and arrived just about a minute before boarding was called. The gate area looked practically deserted, hinting at a light load. When boarding was called, First and Business class used one side of the gate and Economy the other. I was about the fifth passenger aboard the Swiss A340, on what appears to be latest flight scheduled to depart from ZRH, at 2235. I often connect through CDG and it's a very impressive contrast. If they can manage to keep boarding this orderly for fuller flights (see below), then this is great.
The product
First impressions of the cabin were positive - the muted colour pallet is soothing on the eye; the fabrics are conservative but still stylish. I settled in to 9K, a window seat towards the back of the business cabin.
As an aside: some web guides will tell you that row 8 window seats don't have a window, but that's not true - they do have one, but only one (as opposed to the two you get in the other rows).
The width of the seats is ample, and I immediately felt comfortable. Each seat has a gooseneck LED light (which is good for reading at night without disturbing those around you) and in-seat power, which is of the AC outlet variety rather than Empower. There is no storage in the seat itself, but there is a cubby hole for shoes in the seat in front and an additional storage area above that; fine for glasses, wallet, bottle of water...
Pre-departure juice, water or sparkling wine was offered. This time I had a glass of the sparkling wine, which was reasonable. As our scheduled departure time approached, the seat next to mine was still not occupied - nor indeed were most of the others in business class. Eventually, when the doors were closed, the load in J was no more than 25-30% - I suppose this is not entirely a surprise for the Friday evening flight.
I didn't wander down to economy, but since the whole flight boarded through 2L I did get to see roughly how many people came aboard, and I guess it was generally a pretty light load.
Amenity kits were offered (a smart black zippered bag with a SWISS tag), with the usual contents (eyeshade, ear plugs, toothbrush, toothpaste). It seems Swiss doesn't include the other random junk (like combs or shaving kit) by default although these can be requested from the cabin staff.
Take-off was on time.
Food and drink
Menus were distributed soon after take-off. Swiss offers a single menu as both 'light' and 'regular' dining - for the light version, omit the main course and the dessert.
I didn't keep the menu, but as I recall the offering was:
Starter: Mixed antipasto (artichoke, beans, mushrooms etc. in an olive-oil dressing) - quite small, cold and unimpressive.
Soup: Asparagus cream - very good, served in a cup.
Main Course: Choice of:
Fillet of beef with morel sauce, asparagus tips and linguini - as usual a bit overcooked, although still reasonably tasty, the linguini was a bit out of place I thought.
or
Some spiced noodle dish - which I didn't have so can't comment on
Cheese: A selection of Swiss cheeses - exactly two to be precise and quite small portions at that.
Dessert: A single tiny chocolate/fruit tartlet - like about a mouthful and a half!
A linen table-cloth was laid before the meal. A tray was served with the starter and the cheese already plated. The soup, main course and dessert were offered from the trolley. In a nice touch, an example of each of the mains was shown so you could choose between them having seen them. Metal cutlery including knives was used. Warm bread was offered; a nice touch was that as well as butter, one could have olive oil for dipping - a small dish was given for this purpose.
I had a couple of glasses of the Nicolas Feuillatte champagne with the starter and the soup, before moving on to the 2003 Kaapzicht Cabernet Sauvignon (which I already knew I liked, having drunk it in SA earlier this year when touring Stellenbosch). There were two Swiss wine choices (I guess that's mandatory given I'm flying Swiss) which I passed on, and the other white was a Coppola Estate Pinot Grigio I think. Regular refills were offered.
Overall the meal was good if not outstanding: the dessert could stand some enhancement in particular.
IFE
Swiss has a video on demand system. I often have a feeling of trepidation about these as they often seem to spend about as much time crashed and non-functional as working. This one was fine however. The range of films on offer was pretty eclectic (you can download this from the Swiss site so I won't repeat it): certainly not all your usual Hollywood fare. I watched Moonlight in Tokyo which is much better than it sounds from the blurb during my meal. The screens fold out from the seat on a pivot and are about 10" diagonally. The video quality was very good and I appreciated being able to pause the film while conversing with the staff. I didn't try the supplied headphones, but they didn't appear to be noise canceling - I stuck with my Bose QC2s.
Sleep
I found the new business class seats quite comfortable for sleeping. They are of the 'flat but not horizontal' type. I got about five and a half hours sleep before waking up due to dehydration (too much booze not enough water and the dry aeroplane air), which is pretty good for me. I didn't feel like I was sliding down these seats as much as I did with KLM or AF. Maybe it's the fabric? Not as good as BA NCW which remains pretty much my gold standard for business-class comfort, but pretty damn good.
Due to the design of the seat, which extends into a recess in the back of seat in the row ahead, I would imagine that getting out to the aisle from a window seat would be pretty tricky with the aisle seat in the sleeping position.
Breakfast
This was quite early, like about two and a half hours prior to arrival. I know some people like to get every possible minute of sleep, but as this is a late afternoon arrival in HKG I think it's OK. It consisted of a small fruit salad, yoghurt, croissant or bread with jam and then a hot option. I had the omelet with veal chipolata and (uh) spinach. This was again fine if not amazing, but it all added up to a reasonable amount of food. Tea, coffee and juice were all on offer.
Summary
Good seat for sleeping, if not the best. Unobtrusive and generally helpful crew (not standout for cheerfulness etc. but professional - more AF than BA). Good if not great food. One of the better IFE systems with a good choice of films (in my opinion).
I'd definitely fly Swiss J for intercontinental again. I have to give F a try on an award ticket some time too.
The other thing to mention is that the price is definitely right - the basic fare for my r/t was £1,405 - which compares pretty well with BA WT+ (i.e. premium economy) at £1,082, never mind the published CW fares. This is actually the cheapest published business class fare on this route at the moment.