SwissInternationalAirLines

Dear The Wolf,

Yes, exactly. BRU-GVA brings you to another Business flight but you're welcome to use the FCL in GVA as it's considered your direct feeder to your First Class flight departing from ZRH.

Best regards,

Leslie

mmff

"Please hold the line, we will be right with you" (Swiss, +41848700700)

I've been listening to this in a loop for the past 3 hours and 32 minutes (and counting). I believe this message should be rethought. If possible, an estimate of the waiting time should be provided. I can understand the 3-hour wait, especially taking into account the degree of the weather disruptions that hit Switzerland today. However, I find it very poor form being told "we will be right with you" for this long.

asimha

mmff

Update: After 3 dropped calls and hours of waiting time, the agent who took my fourth call told me that my flexible ticket could not be cancelled or changed because I had been a no-show. In her words, "you should have called earlier". I asked to speak with her supervisor and she told me there wasn't one.

Dear Lurker(s), who should I contact at Swiss about this matter? I wish to receive a full refund for the flexible ticket I tried to cancel long before boarding time. It was not my fault that Swiss did not allow me to do this online and that their phone lines were unavailable for most of the day yesterday.

SwissInternationalAirLines

Dear mmff,

We apologize for the lang wait and all inconveniences caused by the multiple delays and cancellations last week.

Were you able to send us your compensation request yet?

Regards, Leslie

mmff

I have used the online form to send a refund request but I have not received any reply.

SwissInternationalAirLines

The response times are currently taking longer due to the many cancellations in the last two weeks. If you received a reference number via e-mail, you're good. Our Customer Service will contact you as soon as possible.

Best regards,

Leslie

mmff

I have not received any email whatsoever. Should I resubmit the form?

SwissInternationalAirLines

Send us your first and last name which you added in the form via DM. I'll check if I can find anything under your name before you resubmit the form.

mmff

Done. Thanks in advance for your help.

saltycargohold

Hey there!
I was just wondering if there are any plans to finally improve the boarding process. Boarding long-haul flights with HON, First, SEN, Business & Start Gold all at once is chaos. And many times on short hauls, priority boarding is just not enforced at all or it is useless when busses are.used anyways.

Cheers & happy new year!

tookitogo

Dear Swiss Lurkers,

First of all, let me say that I appreciate your efforts on behalf of customers. They are heroic, given the constraints you have to work in. (I read the entirety of this thread!) And it's only fair for me to list the things I like about Swiss:

• Great connections out of ZRH.
• Invariably clean, well-maintained aircraft.
• Operational excellence.

With that out of the way, indulge me in a little rant. I live in Zurich, so Swiss frequently has the best connections to many destinations. But I must admit, if there's a decent alternative (especially one in Star Alliance, mostly United), I choose it instead. A few things continue to be thorns in my side when flying Swiss, in no particular order:

• IT. Swiss' computer systems are laughable.
  • Booking website is very inflexible.
  • Mobile boarding passes don't automatically show up in the app. (Or, indeed, even if I try to add them manually.)
  • Apple Passbook boarding passes don't update.
  • Rudimentary feature set in both app and website.
• No support for USA's Global Entry program. Especially odd since Swiss citizens have been eligible since this summer. The TSA Pre component must be expressly supported by the airline, so that TSA Pre appears on the boarding pass.
• Inability to choose seats when booked via codeshare partner. (This and the Global Entry limitation are particularly irritating, since it means for trips to USA I can book with United and get TSA Pre, but no seat assignments, or book via Swiss and get seat assignments, but not TSA Pre.)
• Carry-on luggage weight limit. I totally understand that people who booked eco light may try to cheat their low fare by carrying on tons of stuff, but for eco classic (or even higher classes) I think it's very unfair, and rather tacky. Especially in the winter, I like to travel with a proper carry-on suitcase to stash clothing layers in, but that makes it too heavy.
• Food. In economy, the quality of the food is all over the place. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's… soylent green on a tray. (The "meatloaf" stood out as being vaguely meat-flavored foam rubber in gravy.)
• Service. Also all over the place. Often great (esp. long-haul), but other times, unspeakably bad. (I had a FA on a recent LHR-ZRH flight roll her eyes at me when I politely asked her to collect an empty can. (She said "you can put it in your seatback pocket", to which I replied that I have my iPad there and don't want it getting any residual beer on it. So she took the can, but with an obvious eye roll.) On deplaning, I called her out on it, and her reply was "Well if I took your trash, I'd have to take everyone else's." Uhhh… well yeah you should. FWIW the flight duration was about 20 mins longer than scheduled, so ample time to do another trash run. She did at least apologize for the eye-roll, but that's absolutely unacceptable behavior to a pax IMHO.)
• Nickel and diming. This is ostensibly a flag-carrier, yet it really feels like a budget airline. Like… c'mon, charging to pay by credit card?

When all is said and done, no one thing is a deal breaker, it just feels like death by a thousand paper cuts.

Thanks for letting me vent, and I hope you can take this as constructive criticism to share with decision makers. I really want to love Swiss, but in comparison, I feel positively pampered by United.

Regards,
Antonio

asimha

Dear Swiss Lurkers, a copy of my complaint (ref 1801-LX-05246) to Swiss after an incident at Zurich airport where the luggage measuring racks are smaller than Swiss regulations for carry-on (will someone ever do something about this?). I will of course the reply if I get one.

"Senator flying business class

Dear Sirs,

My daughter and I booked the above reservation to spend a day in Barcelona travelling only with carry on luggage.

So, on Friday I flew to Barcelona with Swiss from Geneva (LX1946 operated by a CS300 HB-JCE, seat 1F).
We had a very nice flight thank you.

On Saturday evening I flew back from BCN to ZRH (LX1957, HB-IOD, A321) and had a very pleasant flight as well.

From Zurich I connected to LX2818 at 22:35 to Geneva and this is where things went wrong.

At the gate (D41) I was very aggressively asked by a certain Mrs Albrecht (gate agent) to check-in my carryon as it was too big to fit on the aircraft. Same aircraft as BCN GVA on Friday (CS300, HB-JBH).

At some point as other passengers were getting very annoyed by her attitude towards me (she would have been more suited acting as a prison guard to be honest), this lady then proceeded to call the Maitre de Cabine of the flight who was very apologetic and said the carry-on was fine. Meanwhile the very rude lady at the gate was ready to call the police which I find unbelievable and I was both very annoyed and shocked at her attitude and aggressive behavior.

This is my carry-on that I have been using on Swiss and other airlines for the past 3 years.

Tumi Alpha 2 International Expandable 4 Wheeled Carry-On and the dimensions are H:55cm W:35cm D:23 cm with a capacity of 30 litres (https://intl.tumi.com/c/luggage/carryon-luggage)

Note the the total number of passengers on this flight was ... 16 so this was not a question of a packed flight, etc.

I am now requesting written confirmation of Swiss that the dimensions of my carry-on are within the limits as published on your website as max. 55 x 40 x 23 cm

It should also be noted that the dimensions of the gauge at the gate (to measure carry-on bags) is incorrect and not inline with your regulations (which unfortunately differ between airlines making travel even more complicated to say the least)

I would very much appreciate your confirmation that I will now carry with me when transiting in Zurich; probably one of the very few airports where these things occur.

Yours truly,"

behuman

Thank you for complaining and making this public on FTalk. There is something very wrong with ZRH airport and this to the detriment of an excellent airline: LX (controlled by Germans).

After several extremely bad experiences (I never reported on FTalk) with:

• Checkport (the like police officers behaving ignorants checking travel documents at the gate) without TIMATIC access only having internal notes
• Kantonspolizei (especially the younger ones which seem NOT to be regular police officers)

I discovered the joy of flying LH (connecting at FRA or MUC) and even if missing the "Swissness" of the LX product am quite happy with their C and F.

The gate agents are NOT LX employees to my knowledge.

verve

I think all of us traveling regularly through Zurich can share carry-on experience like the above. The worst is that they focus on families with small children, African or muslim travelers - hence people they think will not have the experience to push back. I've reported this both to Swissport supervisors as well as to Swiss directly, but only got BS answers. Still hoping media will pick this up at one point as it reflects very badly on Swiss hospitality and cultural openness.
The answer - wear a suit and you will never run into issues.