I flew out in Business Class on LX052 last Saturday (Mar 19) on a A343. I flew back on Wednesday (Mar 23) in Business Class on LX053 and was disappointed to find out that it was an A332. Swiss didn't say anything before we got on the flight. Swiss didn't say anything even when we were on the plane. I guess that they hoped that we wouldn't notice!

We certainly weren't expecting old style AV (not even AVOD) and no power in the seat. You can cope with that if you are prepared. The passengers weren't and neither were the crew. When I asked why it was an old configuration, we were told that they didn't have the crew to fly the original configuration (it wasn't clear whether the plane or the plane and crew were in Hong Kong, helping with the repatriation of people from Japan). When I asked why they hadn't done anything to make things more comfortable for the passengers, the crew were a little bit embarrassed that they hadn't thought to do some relatively simple things such as have a bigger selection of magazines, provide some personal DVD players (or nowadays an iPad), proactively provide some compensation etc.

I did ask for a complaint form and the crew spent the rest of the flight being overly polite to me. They did recharge my iPod in the galley when I asked them if they could do so which helped make the time pass.

Overall, I was most disappointed in the service from Swiss related to the change of aircraft since they could have done far more to make it pleasant for everybody. It was my first flight from BOS-ZRH on Swiss. After the outbound journey, I was thinking "I could get used to this." After the return journey, I was thinking "Not doing this again" and Swiss won't be by first choice (will even take a one-stop).

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.