After a recent period of heavy daily work I was looking forward to a stay in the SWISS Business lounge before boarding this flight to Zurich, to connect to Dusseldorf later on. Actually, the lounge did not disappoint, although the food and beverage offering is not that amazing. The main thing was that it wasn't crowded and there were no children running around. It was what a lounge should be: a place to relax and catch up on some work or prepare for meetings, perhaps with a coffee or a glass of wine and some food. The food offering consisted of vegetarian pasta, some purple congealed soup thing that looked like it came from another planet, macaroni with cheese and potato that was actually quite good and a choucroute, which was the best thing on offer.


The SWISS business lounge in Geneva


The choucroute on offer in the lounge, which was surprisingly good given the state of lounge food these days


And the hard alcohol offering in the lounge; it always made me wonder who can imbibe this stuff before taking a flight, but I joined the ranks today and tried a couple of bottles

The flight to Zurich, aboard an Airbus A320, was delayed by 44 minutes and luckily the later connecting flight to Dusseldorf was also delayed, by 20 minutes, which gave me time to visit the lounge in Zurich! Cabin crew announced that the flight was completely full but my FTL status card came up trumps and the seat between me, at the window, and my neighbour (a Polish woman returning home to Warsaw for Christmas) remained free. The weather forecast for the whole of Switzerland announced large amounts of rain for today, but I enjoyed the views over north Switzerland all the same. I had one of the best views of central Zurich and the lake that I've ever had. Inflight service included bottles of water and Christmas themed chocolates for each passenger. I wonder how long it will be before they take the free water and chocolates away, in the name of cost cutting. Cabin crew were very efficient but distant and there was no human contact whatsoever. We are a long long way from traditional airline service here. It's a shame but I have to accept it and move forward with it, otherwise stay at home. All the same, it was a good enough flight with timely information about connecting flights from Zurich.


SWISS short haul flights are among the very few where there are drop down TV screens with flight information


The free inflight service offering on the Geneva to Zurich flight, which is the same as on any SWISS European flight these days


Quite a good view of Zurich city center here


Leaving the plane in Zurich

Rating 7.5*
Aircraft 320
Seat 36A
Registration HB-JLR