I am a LX Crewmember trained to be in charge of First Class Cabin. Let me tell you that I could not believe what I read. If all is true, please report this to LX that they can contact these Crewmembers . This is how it usually works. We get the report from our costumers through our superiors and are then obliged to give explanations why and what and so on.
On my flights, the lights are always dimmed on nightflights, to make sure that passengers who like to sleep are not disturbed .
Lights for Breakfast 1.15h before landing, also dimmed..(maybe earlier on ultra long flights like yesterday from LAX , as Passengers are up earlier...)
Just one thing to let you know, We are obliged to stop service 40 mins before landing.This is by law of JAA /Jar Ops from European Authorities.
40 mins before landing we must start to clear the cabin and stow everything to make sure that 20mins before landing the Galley and Cabin is secured and ready for landing.
If we do not adhere to these procedures, we could get in trouble.
Hope this helped you a bit.
And by the way, from March19th we will have the vanLaack PJ'S (same as LH) on bord!! Finally!! Halleluja....
the will be given out on Nightflights, on dayflights you have to ask for them, and we will be glad to give yxou one....
Dear Eurobus, what a pleasure to have LX crew members on the forum, so allow me to give you my opinion based on the previous posts in this thread.
I have been flying with Swissair and then Swiss for over 25 years very regularly and as an ex-Circle member I was always very well treated on board. I still am of course but a little less due to my simple Senator status. I also used to participate in the SR Customer Improvement programs out of Geneva.
I tend to agree with the previous posts about the noisy cabin and the trampling on the floors during the meal services whether in First or C class. Some airlines have resolved this by a) wearing soft soled shoes on board instead of the harder high heels and b) keeping the chatting to a minimum. During the “night shift” and particularly on short flights (such as JFK-GVA) I agree that very often the meal service takes too long and does create a lot of noise for maybe only 10% of passengers wanting to eat.
Of course chatting in the galley still occurs but this is normal I guess
The remark you make about the JAA/Jar Ops is most probably accurate but each airline interprets them slightly differently. As an example, another airline that owns Swiss … succeeds in serving a great hot breakfast on a 1 hour flight and will even let you go to the bathroom 10 to 15 minutes before landing. With Swiss this has become quite impossible as you know including the fact that the announcement “… use of the lavatory is now prohibited” is made when it’s already too late
Meal services also tend to be very long at times, whereas “other” airlines have managed to be much more efficient including a more personalized service (mind you the “a la carte” LX breakfast is really a fabulous touch!)
Again, I love flying LX and will do for many years to come, but please a little less noise and stress from the cabin crew would really be a + for all us poor passengers.
I am a great fan and loyal customer or SR/LX since I can think, but lthe other day I was terribly disappointed.
After a 20 hour stay in Dubai, I was in F class on the flight to ZRH. Departure time 2.20am local, so 11.20pm my bodyclock. No problem, as 7h05 block time should give me a full night's sleep (a "full night" for me is six hours), as LX's First Class seats for me are the best of any European airline.
The cabin crew was a bunch of "rustic" middle-aged men who to tell by their accent came from some forelone valleys in Wallis respectively in Eastern Switzerland. Nothing wrong with that and - to tell by their manners - the fact that in their youth they obviously were trained in the art of mowing hay rather than in the art of cosmopolitan politeness. They didn't say good evening (forget about the addressing by name that's part of the usual HON treat at Swiss), they just grabbed my jacket and stuffed it in the overhead bin (hello? No hangers on board?), and overall I just didn't find them very polished. Well, anyway, that doesn't matter, because I was here to sleep.
After take-off the entire F cabin except 2 people wanted to go to sleep, so there was some shuffling about when beds were ´prepared. Now, instead of dimming the cabin lights somewhat to make it more comfortable for the large majority of pax that wanted to sleep, they left all lights on. And not only that, they made a lot of noise serving the two eating passengers: china, cutlery, glasses, speaking loudly to the pax, talking to each other across the cabin ("Du, channschd mal schaue ob's noch Zitroni im Eis hät?" - from row 3 to the front galley). Now this matters a bit, as it made sleeping a little difficult.
20 mins after tugging into my duvet I was only half asleep so my eyes were half open, so they came and asked whether I wanted to be woken up for breakfast. Well, it's a curteous question - but can you please ask it BEFORE I am half asleep...
Finally some calm after about 1 hour after departure, or at least I fell asleep, thinking "OK, this leaves me about 6 hours of sleep, until around 6am".
Well, I was wrong. For some reason at 4.30am body time (=2 hours before scheduled landing time!) the rustic men decided that it was time to get up and go to work. Trouble was that there was no cow to milk or hay to mew, so there we went: full cabin lights, lots of noice from china and cutlery from the galley, loud talking again, and around 5am they made a cabin announcement "we hope you caught some sleep". No I didn't, you morons! Shut up and dim the lights! When I slowly sat up in my seat, they came and pulled away the duvet, and I had to stop them from throwing me out of my seat. Imagining that I was not going to have breakfast was too much for them.
Behind this anecdote lies a more fundamental flaw with this service experience on a shorter longhaul night flight on Swiss: they should know that in F class there are many people who only fly F to get some sleep. The flight is just short enough to get a good amount of sleep, and short enough to have dinner and breakfast at either side of the trip. These travelers don't care about food, about IFE, about anything - just the quality of the lie-flat seat and the opportunity to get some sleep. Of course there are people on different body times or those that can't sleep or those that simply want to taste the menu. But the goal should be to accomodate both. On the way out to DXB I was in F on Lufthansa from MUC, a night flight as well. There I woke up gently about 25 mins before landing by a cabin announcement that we were going to land, with people around me having breakfast already - but the crew had made an effort to have only dimmed light and not to make too much noise.
I am not sure whether this is LX "policy" to shorten pax' nights or whether it was the rustic men deciding that it's healthy to get up early and have some Birchermüesli.
If your experiences confirm that even in First they wake up people far too early, then I believe that LX should change that.
But maybe they do it on purpose, to make people forget that LX doesn't offer any PJs in First ...
Am I really the only one to find this post's tone rather pompous and condescending?! What exactly is your problem with Valais/farmers/non cosmopolitans? Have you ever actually eaten in a resto in some 'forlorne valley' in Valais? In fact have you ever actually visited the Canton? The fact that Valais is not in eastern Switzerland would suggest you haven't
Am I really the only one to find this post's tone rather pompous and condescending?! What exactly is your problem with Valais/farmers/non cosmopolitans? Have you ever actually eaten in a resto in some 'forlorne valley' in Valais? In fact have you ever actually visited the Canton? The fact that Valais is not in eastern Switzerland would suggest you haven't
...maybe you're just the only one who has a sense-of-humour failure... of course I played around with some stereotypes, but if your reading of the post had been as subtle as my writing, you wouldn't have found it condescending. You also would have noticed the word "respectively", a form of grammar which is used to separate two factual statements, namely that one of the two came from Wallis, the other one from Eastern Switzerland. The fact that I can tell their origins by their accents should imply that I do have some knowledge of the human geography of Switzerland and its cantons.
And as a matter of fact, I have been in Valais, both the German and the French-speaking part, about 25 times in the past 12 months. In the Rhone valley cities and also in some smaller villages up in the valleys (no, not only the tourist spots).
Thinking of it, I find it a bit condescending by you to take the moral high road on other people's supposed attitudes, and all of that based on not properly reading what has been written...
>>>With Swiss this has become quite impossible as you know including the fact that the announcement “… use of the lavatory is now prohibited” is made when it’s already too late
Sorry for OT, but I recently flew with another (partly) German-owned Swiss airline. There, the captain announced he was going to switch on the fasten seatbelt sign in about ten minutes so people could "plan" their last trip to the lavatory accordingly. Great idea
I also have to say that every time i fly swiss and hear that announcement. The use of the lav. is not allowed anymore, i think how rude. Why cant they make an announcement 10 min before. I also think they can change the text and say it a little nicer. Like, for safety reasons we kindly request that you not use the lavatory anymore.
I was once waiting for 15 min. to get a free lav. and then the message came on. I was told by a steward very rudely, that i have to sit down. I explained him, that I was waiting for 15 min. already and have to go. ( We were about 30 min before landing) He got very aggressive and even started pushing me. I did make a big fuss about it and complained to the MC. She said she would report it.
I was once waiting for 15 min. to get a free lav. and then the message came on. I was told by a steward very rudely, that i have to sit down. I explained him, that I was waiting for 15 min. already and have to go. ( We were about 30 min before landing) He got very aggressive and even started pushing me. I did make a big fuss about it and complained to the MC. She said she would report it.
I also have to say that every time i fly swiss and hear that announcement. The use of the lav. is not allowed anymore, i think how rude. Why cant they make an announcement 10 min before.
On the last few flights (all to and from the US), they MC made an announcement like "once the captain switches the seat bell sign on, the use of the lavatory is no longer permitted". This announcement was made shortly after the last information from the cockpit (weather forecast, arrival time etc)
Hi all
He got very aggressive and even started pushing me. I did make a big fuss about it and complained to the MC. She said she would report it.
Did you also report it directly to swiss? This behavior is pretty strange (even knowing that they are pretty strict with ther lav policy after the switch on of the seatbell sign).
Waiting 15 min. to get a free lav is bad luck - but the A340 has really just one single lav for all 8 F-passengers.
And giving agressive comments to an F-Class-Passenger is really really displaced (I assume you were in F, as this thread is about F-Class). I've never experienced such things in LX F... (neither in C).
I am a LX Crewmember trained to be in charge of First Class Cabin. Let me tell you that I could not believe what I read.
Hey Eurobus, nice to have a crewmember here, hopefully you stick around to answer some question from your point of view!
Most posts on such forums as FT exaggerate little problems. And everyone likes to whine if his ... wasn't pampered enough. But it still shows that there is a problem, and I have to agree that often Swiss (and LH for that matter) trampels across the cabin, bumps into seats and can have very loud conversation.
But there is an advantage to it. If I need water or coffee but doesn't want to use the call button (what I seldom do) I wait until I *feel* an FA approaching and will try to catch his/her attention.
Having just experienced SQ C on 4 flights I actually had to press the button. These people just appear out of nowhere and I think they actually don't even touch the floor
I am a LX Crewmember trained to be in charge of First Class Cabin. Let me tell you that I could not believe what I read. If all is true, please report this to LX that they can contact these Crewmembers . This is how it usually works. We get the report from our costumers through our superiors and are then obliged to give explanations why and what and so on.
On my flights, the lights are always dimmed on nightflights, to make sure that passengers who like to sleep are not disturbed .
Lights for Breakfast 1.15h before landing, also dimmed..(maybe earlier on ultra long flights like yesterday from LAX , as Passengers are up earlier...)
Just one thing to let you know, We are obliged to stop service 40 mins before landing.This is by law of JAA /Jar Ops from European Authorities.
40 mins before landing we must start to clear the cabin and stow everything to make sure that 20mins before landing the Galley and Cabin is secured and ready for landing.
If we do not adhere to these procedures, we could get in trouble.
Hope this helped you a bit.
And by the way, from March19th we will have the vanLaack PJ'S (same as LH) on bord!! Finally!! Halleluja....
the will be given out on Nightflights, on dayflights you have to ask for them, and we will be glad to give yxou one....
Thats great, those PJ's are nice. In general the service on LX is great and most crew members really try to make a good job. I never experienced the crew being too loud or anything however on JFK - ZRH flights in F the service is too slow at times. It must be possible to be able to go to sleep 1h after take off and have eaten full dinner. Then again it shuld be possible to get full breakfast p to 30 mins before arrival in F. Regarding C class breakfast service on C should also not be started earlier than 1h before arrival on JFk flights. Another thing is the toilets as mentioned there are not many airlins if at all that prohibit using toilets that long before arrival. Lastly the AVOD IFE system on the A340's are always being switched off much to early 15 mins before arrival should be fine and not 30 to 40 mins before especially when on short flights like to TLV. Again in general the crews on LX do a great jjob but there are those mentioned things that are quite anoying and it would be good if LX could adapt to other airlines such as LH for instance who also are better when it comes to the mentioned points. Lastly, what will happen to the selection of magazines and newspapers in C and F will this also be improved?
[quote=creber;9378532
Thinking of it, I find it a bit condescending by you to take the moral high road on other people's supposed attitudes, and all of that based on not properly reading what has been written... [/QUOTE]
He's just expressing an opinion, he is certainly not being "condescending".
One bad crew doesn't make a bad airline. I was flying LX DXB-ZRH and had a perfect F experience. Cabin had only 4 pax and before departure I was approached whether I wanted to sleep in my seat 1K. Yes, I did - and I was asked to move to 1G so that they could make my bed on the ground to allow me to go to sleep as soon as the seatbelt signs were off...
I told them I wanna skip breakfast and when I woke up 30 minutes before arrival, I found 1G to be fully set up for breakfast though. I changed seats again and enjoyed breakfast - and not only did they brew me a first espresso, they also offered a second one and collected the cup 10 minutes before touch-down.
