Amsterdam to Zürich in SWISS business class

I must be producing a lot of bad karma - upon leaving the lounge, I learned that my flight would actually depart from the most remote concourse B gate, so I had to make quite a trek (I always get those remote gates - when flying out of Frankfurt, I almost always get gate A40 as arrival or departure gate, which is also the most remote usable gate at FRAs concourse A). Hence, I made my way back towards the B concourse (which was now considerably crowded) and arrived at my departure gate approximately 5 minutes before the published boarding time



Upon arriving at the gate, our plane was just pulling into the parking positions (I really don’t understand why the Amsterdam rotations are always slightly late), and I was quite excited to see that we’d be flying on HB-JCH, a brand-new CS300 plane that had only been put into service the day before.



The Flight

Flight: LX725
From: AMS/EHAM
To: ZRH/LSZH
Aircraft Type: Bombardier BD-500 CS300
Registration: HB-JCH
STD: 09:50
STA: 11:20

As the plane had only arrived when boarding was scheduled to start, we had to wait another 20 minutes before we could finally board. I had selected seat 6C (which means you can use either 6A and 6C as they will only put one person into each row on the port side in business class, due to the 2-3 seat layout. I had originally (when the scheduled plane had still been an A321) selected 1F but I thought, I might as well get one of the rows where nobody is sitting next to me and blocking aisle access for me. However, when I opened the booking on SWISS.com again to select a different seat (the left sides of rows 1 and 2 were still vacant), I simply couldn’t change my seat reservation. This really seems to be an issue with LX’ booking engine that has been going on forever, because I have never been able to successfully change a seat reservation that I had made at the time of booking (trying this actually caused all kinds of weird effects). Hence, I was forced to try my luck at check-in, at the time of which only the left seats in row 6, the last row of business class, were still available. I was actually quite surprised as to how full both the flights and the airports were on a perfectly normal Sunday (the flight to Bangkok was also displayed to have 8 out of 8 persons in the F cabin).

Upon entering the plane, I was really positively surprised. While the CS had been announced surrounded by the usual marketing hype and accordingly, media coverage, I have learned to be very cautious about the ornate announcements by both airlines and product manufacturers. But in this case, I really have to say that I was extremely impressed by the cabin itself.









The overall design of the cabin and the seats was really nice, and the legroom was surprisingly large, probably even a bit larger than in KLMs paid premium section. The windows were actually larger than on the Embraer (even though the difference is not that big), and I really liked the fact that the aisle-side armrests can be moved by default, which makes it much easier to, for example, access the overhead bins or visit the lavatory while the tray table is folded down.

However, I have to say that while the overhead bins are indeed much larger than on comparable planes, their opening mechanism makes it actually impossible to access (or even open) then bin without stepping out into the aisle. This will probably not really speed up the boarding process (even though most people don’t care about stepping into their rows before putting things into the bins), and it really caused a bit of chaos during deboarding, as you simply cannot take, for example, your coat out of the bins without standing up and stepping into the aisle.



Something else I appreciated about the new plane was the quality of the speakers and the PA system. This was actually the first plane where you could perfectly understand what was being said (both from the FAs and the cockpit), and obviously, someone has put a second thought into where to put the individual speakers and at which angle to attach them (basically, the speakers are located slightly behind each row and are tilted in a way that makes the sound reach your ear just from behind your head).

After everybody had boarded, we had already exceeded our departure time by 15 minutes, and unfortunately, they needed to count all passengers again, as they had a discrepancy on passenger count. All the while we were preparing for takeoff, there was a Finnair A321 standing on the taxiway right next to us, probably waiting for us to vacate the gate.



About 20 minutes late, we could finally push back and taxi to our departure runway 18L. When we commenced our taxi, I noticed that the engines would make a very weird sound upon spooling up, very much like what you could hear on the classic Boeing 737 - just a bit more extreme. While this is not a big issue (this is not going to happen again once in the air), it feels a bit weird when a brand-new plane makes similar sounds to planes that have been constructed 30 years ago.

After takeoff I noticed the second of the two downsides I could identify with this aircraft. The vibration of the entire aircraft during the whole flight was really extreme, about as extreme as an A320 with the spoilers up during approach. While I thought this might go away at some point, the vibration continued throughout the entire flight, and I really wouldn’t want to take a longer flight on this plane, as this is really annoying (at least for me). I thought that it is a bit of a pity to produce an aircraft with such a great cabin which makes for such an uncomfortable flight. In this respect, the Embraer takes a runaway victory.

Well, shortly after departure, the cabin crew was „released“, and we were served breakfast, starting from the front of the cabin. It actually took about 20 minutes until the FA reached my seat row, as she obviously took her time to care quite well about everybody. While I was starting to get hungry, I didn’t really mind, as we still had more than half an hour to go when I finally received my meal.



The food was the usual fare that will be served on those short hops until late morning, and while it is nothing special, it is ok and well edible. It is also probably the most substantial meal you can get on a SWISS flight under two and a half hours flight time.

Shortly before we commenced our descent, I visited the lavatory which was surprisingly spacious and also nicely designed - however, I didn’t take pictures there.

We touched down in ZRH about 10 minutes behind schedule and were assigned a finger gate in concourse A. From there, I directly made my way to the old First Class Lounge A, that had it’s last day of operation on that day.

Verdict

It is actually quite difficult to make me say that I’m impressed, but the cabin of the new aircraft has definitely left me impressed. I mean, there are some very minor flaws, but I believe this is the first time in years that I feel that something new or extended in the field of transportation is actually better than what was there before. Usually, everything gets tighter, uglier and less comfortable, but in this case, I really have to say that the cabin of the CSeries is an improvement in practically all areas. The only thing that leaves me a bit disappointed is the actual plane which, with its relatively noisy and rumbling flight characteristics, leaves a bit to be desired.