Introduction
Having flown the "farewell 747" flights in SQ and NH back in March/April (you can find the trip reports for the outbound flight on SQ F
here and inbound flight on NH F
here), I decided that it was time to try out some new airline/routes when I sat down to contemplate the next trip back home in July. The SQ and NH flights were fantastic, of course, but I had now flown on their F twice each on the flagship longhaul routes and - as they say - variety is the spice of life!
Of all the Star Alliance options, the airline next on my "to do" list was Swiss. They have an excellent reputation for being consistently magnificent in their demonstration of Swiss hospitality and even their old First Class seat is still very much competitive in many ways, despite being well over 10 years old - so, I thought it would be nice to try them in F on a longhaul flight. Although I am aware that they have their fantastic new products on the A330, I couldn't find the reward space needed on the JFK route so I decided to save it for the next time and went for a flight to LAX instead.
And once I found the required space on the ZRH-LAX sector, it was time to decide how to get from LAX to my eventual destination, ICN. It had been a while since I had flown a longhaul sector on Asiana and after their very impressive showing on the ICN-NRT back in April, I decided to give them a try in Business Class on the LAX-ICN sector which was thankfully not under the blackout period unlike all their non-USA departures on my desired dates.
I was well aware that my intended routing of stopping at LAX was literally twice the distance of flying on the very convenient LHR-ICN nonstop, but when the opportunity to experience two excellent airlines in First Class and Business Class presents itself, I would have been mad to turn it down! In order to take advantage of the zone system curiosities, I needed to depart from MXP to fly to ZRH which then meant I had to fly from LHR to MXP first. So, what could have been one non-stop flight from London to Seoul turned into a convoluted journey of LHR-MXP-ZRH-LAX-ICN, with a night's stop at both ZRH and LAX. That said, I don't think I have surprised any of you familiar with my crazy routings between London and Seoul on my previous trip reports!
My itinerary looked like the following:
Flight 1: LH1873 LHR MXP 22JUL Dep: 1225 Arr: 1525 (Y-class)
Flight 2: LX1623 MXP ZRH 23JUL Dep: 1820 Arr: 1915 (C-class)
Flight 3: LX040 ZRH LAX 23JUL Dep: 1310 Arr: 1640 (F-class)
Flight 4: OZ201 LAX ICN 24JUL Dep: 1400 Arr: 1830+1 (C-class)
Overall, it represented nearly 72 hours of travelling. Even by my standards, it was going to be quite exciting! Here is the journey...
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INDEX
1. An identity crisis - LHR-MXP on LH/BD Y
2. Short but sweet - MXP-ZRH on LX C
3. A lucky preview - Zurich First Class Lounge
4. Understated, Refined, Personal - the Swiss First experience
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Flight 1: LH1873 LHR-MXP 22JUL (We), A319, Seat 5A
STD: 1225 (On Time) STA: 1525 (On Time)
Pre-flight
I found this flight for a
very good price on Lufthansa.com despite only booking it a week before departure. The total price including all taxes was £49 - that's usually the starting point for just the
taxes alone when departing from LHR! If I had wanted to redeem a business class reward on this short segment then the taxes/charges would have actually come to nearly £70. It clearly made sense to stick it out in Y, even though I had no Star Alliance status anymore and therefore at a risk of ending up in miserable queues at check-in etc.
This was a route served by Lufthansa Italia, whose operations began earlier this year in February. Given the utter direness of Alitalia, it's hardly surprising that Lufthansa saw an opportunity in the Italian market with some good ol' German efficiency. Last I heard, they were doing pretty well despite being very early days of operation whereas Alitalia seemed to be - as usual - in a permanent state of near-bankruptcy with implacable labour relations and huge losses. Back to the subject at hand... so the flight on LH Italia was therefore an interesting "new" airline to try.
Checking in online exactly 24 hours prior to departure, I found no space in one of the Row 9 exit seats with extra legroom so I had to content myself with a seat in Row 5 which would at least let me disembark early and minimise any queueing. And I was given the option of a mobile boarding pass - this involved receiving a link by SMS or email, which I would then click and retrieve the square type barcode which could be scanned by everyone along the way. As I had never tried anything like it before, it was quite cool to see how it all works. Here is a photo:
My very first Mobile boarding pass!
As usual, I spent all night packing and tidying my room on the night before departure. I wonder whether I would ever get rid of the habit - it just seems easier to do it all in the middle of the night, rather than set aside time during the day which can be spent socialising with friends and so on. Besides, missing a morning flight has become one of my phobias thanks to a bad experience with an early Eurostar departure and I don't tend to trust myself to wake up early for something with such dire consequences if I don't. So, unless it's an evening departure, I just find it easier to not sleep! There will be plenty of time to sleep onboard the flights and at the lounges in any case.
Getting the bus from Feltham station, I arrived at Terminal 1 around 11:00am. Along the way on the bus, I passed by the large scale model of the Emirates A380 which has long replaced the BA Concorde that used to occupy the same spot. Quite frankly, I'm not a fan - whereas the Concorde was slender, elegant and represented air travel at its most glamorous, the A380 is fat, ugly and 400 Y passengers crowd it out on the lower deck. Hardly representative of any notion of the "romance of travel".
The offending A380 model
Lufthansa moved its operation from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 back in June and I can confidently say that it is a huge improvement over the previous arrangements. With a dedicated area in Zone K (previously Zone R in the BA days) and a dedicated security lane, as well as spacious areas for check-in and bag drops, the departure experience no longer resembles an exodus from a dilapidated third world airport. They seemed to force everyone travelling in Y to use the self-service check-in machines but since I already had a mobile boarding pass, I proceeded straight to the bag-drop where my bags were taken care of by a friendly agent.
Zone K used by Lufthansa-aligned airlines as well as TAP Portugal
Y pax being asked to use the self check-in machine before proceeding to the bag drops
Thankfully, no queues at the bag drop. I would imagine that it could get quite busy during peak hours
The First Class / Star Gold check-in area with its dedicated priority lane to security
Once I proceeded to the (non-Fast Track) security I was relieved to find almost no-one in the queue, which put me in a good mood despite being a "laptops out, belts off, shoes off" slog at the x-ray. After I had reassembled myself and my belongings, I went to Pret to grab something to eat and drink and sat down to phone BMI to make the reservation for my return flight.
Those of you familiar with the pain of dealing with the ICC would be amazed to hear that I managed to book, pay and even reserve my seats without any problems, all within 15 minutes! It was definitely a new record for me. The itinerary for the return flight would be ICN-HKG-BKK-OSL on TG, then OSL-LHR on SK. And yes, I'll be writing a trip report for those too 
Departure information display - I really like the quality of the flat screen displays