San Francisco - Zurich
My first trip report on the board, let's see if this is as hard as it looks...
Tuesday evening my wife wendolene & I arrived at SFO for our 9:20 flight to Zurich on Swissair (Delta codeshare). We're both on business (fortunately, we work for the same company and frequently need to travel together). She is going to stay in Europe for a few weeks, I shall return Sunday.
We were informed that the flight would be quite late in arriving, so we will not leave until past 11:30 PM. I did check the Swissair website for the flight status before we left, and it gleefully lied that the flight was on time. We are given $15 vouchers at the Delta desk for having something to eat. Delta also maked sure we were sitting together, moving us from seats 8D & 9D to an aisle-window combination on the left side in Business class.
We had a very nice dinner at a place called Barbary Coast in the international terminal. We really didn't expect much from this place, basically a bar with a very limited menu. But the Chinese Chicken salad was wonderful, very fresh.
We also realized that Delta never collected miles from wendolene or a systemwide upgrade from me for our business class seats! Well, they know where to find us.
After watching the rest of the Sugar Bowl at the Crown Room Club (back in the domestic termnial), we finally went to the boarding area at around 11 PM. Swissair boarded Business class last, after boarding First Class and Economy. I've seen them do this before, it is actually quite efficient.
The Swissair MD-11 has the entertainment system disabled (a result of the SR 111 accident), so the overhead movies were headlined by the classic Inspector Gadget and Dear Claudia. It's about midnight, so I decide that sleeping is more important than having another meal or watching these fine films on the screen.
wendoline does get the meal setup (some shrimp, a salad, some cheese and dessert). She eats the cheese (terrific,of course) and tastes the dessert ("an apple thing with cream", awful), and is later asked if she wants the hot meal of beef, chicken or fish (there were no menus given out). She opts to sleep, too. She said the meal service was "coach-like".
The legroom of the seats is quite a bit less than Business Elite. wendoline found the seats quite uncomfortable (she likes the Delta seats much better). She did not like the lumbar support much, and she found the seats difficult from which to exit. I liked the foldable wings on the headrest, which stayed in place better than most Delta seats.
I did sleep about 5 hours, which is much better than usual for me. The flight took advantage of the tailwinds, and was scheduled for 10 hours (an hour faster than normal) -- turns out we would give back about a half-hour of that circling Zurich due to fog.
When I woke up, I was thirsty, but the flight attendants had disappeared in the dark cabin. After about a half hour, I made the difficult climb out of my seat over the sleeping wendolene to use the rest room. I then went into the galley and grabbed a small bottle of water. Delta nows supplies these bottles in the seat pockets of every seat in Business Elite -- Swissair could learn from them.
We did hit some pretty bumpy weather sometime afterward. That was the moment that the FA's chose to go through the cabin with glasses of water, apple juice, orange juice & Coke!
We were served a breakfast about a hour before landing -- cold cuts, fruit (very nice), yogurt (with strawberries, which I won't eat) and rolls. Very nice. Coffee-drinker wendolene said the coffee was the best she had ever had on an airplane. They later came through with some omlettes and crepes suzzette, but we declined.
It is hard to judge service (and food) on an overnight flight. This was probably my 15th time crossing the ocean on Swissair, and I am usually quite happy with them. This was wendoline's first trip with them (she has gone with United, Lufthansa, & Delta before), and she was much more critical.
I do like this flight because I need to go to Zurich about 5 times a year, and this is by far the most convinient flight. However, I believe the end of the wonderfully run alliance between Swissair and Delta means that I will need to look elsewhere if I expect an upgraded seat!
After we landed and claimed luggage, we grabbed the waiting shuttle to the Zurich Marriott, our favorite place here.
Maybe I'll post more later (as may wendoline, as she continues her own trip on Crossair, Lufthansa, British Airways and Delta)