clubman

Just chatting to a friend yesterday that travelled with LX to TLV a the other week from LHR.

So her journey started when she arrived with her 6 year old at LHR extremely early (not sure why...) to discover her 17:00 flight to ZRHZ had been cancelled and that they could put her on an early flight, how early? Well flight leaves at 13:15 and the time was 13:00! Agent says if they run he will let the gate agents know they are on the way, so they rush through and make the apparently packed flight...

While waiting at ZRH they are told at some point that there was a delay to their ZRH-TLV sector as well so flight would be leaving an hour late at 23:30, and to top it all up, would be leaving from a different terminal...

Anyway, why have I posted this here? Well if you haven't guessed it already, when they did board the plane they discovered it had been downgraded to an A320!

Surprise surprise....

And to top it all up their luggage never arrived at TLV, which of course I could have told them because if they were booked on a 13:15 flight at 13:00 there was no chance their luggage would have made it (They might be able to run to the aircraft but their luggage can't...).

brarrr

Well, if a LX rep ends up reading this, it doesn't look good. I was going to book sea-sfo-zrh-tlv and back, mostly just to try a different airline's biz product, but with what appears to be a high risk of ending up on an overnight flight in a economy seat (yea, that's what I consider euro biz to be no matter how nice the magazines are), I'll stick with my usual of CO/UA or LH or DL, all of which are also one stop instead of two.. so much for my $6k

rma1999

Took the flight from ZRH-TLV (LX 254) Jan. 9 return Jan 12 in C. It was a wonderful flight......around 40% full in Biz.......clean new plane.....just perfect!!

tomsundstrom

I did end up on LX257 on the 2nd, and it was the 321. I didn't send in a complaint or a request for any kind of compensation though, because I really don't need a voucher given that I don't normally fly Swiss, and they already know of the problem, so I don't really need to alert them to the problem.

What gets me about the substitution is that this is a flight that leaves Tel Aviv at 5:30 in the morning. That means that one needs to get to the airport sometime between 2:30-3:30, so you basically pull an all-nighter before you get on the plane. I get that fleet utilization is incredibly complex, but why substitute the narrow body, which is a redeye from ZRH, on the early morning flight when people need to sleep, instead of on the morning flight from ZRH that becomes the mid-afternoon flight from TLV?

The response from Swiss above that "Although we understand that the Business Class in an Airbus A320 is not the same as in an A340, we offer however a higher quality of service on board for our Business Class guests, such as champagne, free magazines and newspapers, and higher quality catering." is absolutely ridiculous on a 5:30 AM flight. Fortunately, having been up all night, I was able to sleep, but it was certainly not as relaxing as being in a flat bed. When I think about future travel plans, which do take me to Israel and Europe periodically, I will definitely take this experience into consideration.

matt in france

The Narrowbody is used as backup for the TLV Flight in cases where one of the Widebodies goes Tech - LX don't have any spare Widebodies standing about, but all of those A32S that overnight at ZRH aren't needed until the Morning [unless obviously they have Maintenance planned], so can feasibly be sent to TLV and just about be back in time for their scheduled departures without upsetting the next day's schedule too much.
There's rarely any time to fix a late night last minute Tech issue in ZRH because of the 11pm Curfew there, which, if missed either means cancelling the Flight and reaccomodating the Pax, or postponing it till the Morning, thereby having to put the Pax to TLV up for the night, AND having knockon delays on the Intercontinental Schedule the next day. Given the options, while the A320 isn't ideal, it's a helluva lot cheaper to activate as a backup plan.

Houminer

You are correct. Swiss don't have many other options. But we have the option not to fly Swiss....

RedChili

The problem is that Swiss has five long-haul flights that leave at 22:40-22:45, In addition to TLV, there are flights to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Johannesburg, and Sao Paulo. The other four destinations are obviously way out of range for an A320.

And since the schedule is so tight, and with the curfew, as explained by Matt, this basically means that even a minor technical problem on any one of the five A343s scheduled to fly, they will have to downgrade the TLV flight.

The situation with the day flight is much less complex, hence why I'm booked on that flight in a few weeks from now.

clubman

Whicn is a shame I think.

It's your time I guess, but if the attitude is I can't be bothers to spend 5 minutes writing to them then they really will not be aware of the extend this annoyes their customers.

tomsundstrom

It wasn't that I couldn't be bothered to write to them, just that I didn't see what good would come of it. Your point that they will not be aware of the extent to which this annoys their customers, though, is probably true, and I will send them a note.

Matt in France and redChili, I appreciate your responses. The A343 went tech 3 days before the flight, so it was not a last-minute thing. If the schedule is so tenuous that Swiss is needing to replace the wide bodies with narrow bodies on a fairly frequent basis, then they should probably let the consumer know that this is a risk.

Regardless of the justification for changing the equipment, which I accept as valid, it does factor into my decision going forward as to whom I will fly.

clubman

couldn't agree more.

SFOPremex

An update on the downgrade saga:

I was on the same flight as tomsundstrom and we both agreed that though Swiss contacted us ahead of time, and had a sign at check-in notifying passengers of the change, it was very surprising that there was no discussion, or offer for any kind of compensation from Swiss. To be honest, Swiss seemed quite content with the way they handled the equipment change and the way they handled any questions about it.

A little background on why I chose Swiss for this trip, and its quite simple - the 3am arrival into Tel Aviv and the 5am departure from Tel Aviv. Swiss was very clear about offering the A340 on these flights and I knew that arriving and departing at those early times would be tough and sleep would be something that was critical for me and my family. In fact, to make that 5am departure, we were in a van at 130am in Jerusalem so we can make it in time for our flight.

I did feel bad for the flight attendants on the flight - there were a few passengers who upon walking into the cabin were quite upset and vented their frustration on the innocent flight crew. The crew noted to me that they were often frustrated with the equipment changes as well because they were the ones who often too the brunt of anger from upset passengers.

I took the time to contact Swiss after the conclusion of the trip to let them know my frustration with the substituation. I noted that they heavily advertised the A340, had a special website in Israel about their new business class and even advertised their new business class in the emails they send to passengers. I also noted that aircraft issues can happen, and other aircraft need to be substituted, but the airline needs to make sure their traveler is given the same product on the new aircraft, or they need to be compensated if the product is inferior. Their response was quite unsupportive, and was identical to the one Clubman received, except they offered me zero compensation despite the fact that I purchased six RT business class tickets from SFO-TLV.

I replied and let them know how frustrating it was to be offered one thing, and to be given something completely different. Buying business class, and then sitting in an "business europe" seat (economy class) was not at all what I expected, and if I had known that this would happen, I would have taken my business to another carrier.

Swiss replied and offered each member of my family 3000 miles for our trouble and in closing, hoped to see us on another Swiss flight in the future. I told them that 3000 miles really meant nothing to us, and that a credit towards future travel on Swiss or a segment upgrade would be more appropriate. They disagreed and told me that I had received the best offer possible.

So where does this leave me? I am left feeling quite empty about Swiss. I don't feel like they understand their passengers, or the poor image it can create when their travelers feel like they have been taken advantage of. Up until this event, we had happily traveled with Swiss on dozens of flights, and always received excellent service.

Though I will probably need to fly Swiss again in the future, I certainly look at other options if I have the ability to in the future.

N1120A

Honestly, I'm thinking various Swiss, Israeli and American regulations might be worth citing in an attempt to be compensated.

Jasper2009

WOW! 3000 miles per pax for a downgrade from a long-haul C product with flat beds to a short-haul business class product (which is much closer to a Y product)? Thatīs insulting!

Iīm no fan of pax asking for unreasonable compensation for minor issues like broken reading lights etc., but I find it quite disturbing that LX just dismisses complaints about this kind of downgrades, particulary on a revenue ticket.

I think any of the following would be reasonable compensation:

- $150-$200 cash compensation
- $250 discount voucher for future travel
- 20k miles (nearly enough to upgrade Europe-TLV once)
- 1 e-voucher if you happened to have status / were registered in Israel

3000 miles is just ridiculous!

That being said, Iīm not sure what else you can do. The EU regs. regarding involuntary downgrades most likely donīt apply as you still flew C ().
You could try sending a registered letter to HQ asking for your complaint to be considered again. I guess you could have an argument that LX engages in false advertising as the downgrade was not an isolated incidence, but as shown in this thread, happens on a regular basis.

*A Flyer

Exactly. The regs should be rewritten to include a significant reduction in seat pitch as being equivalent to a downgrade. They could use a similar formula to what the UK uses for APD.

clubman

Couldn't agree more! Its disgraceful

My thoughts exactly, and I may look into that.