San Gottardo

I am a great fan and loyal customer or SR/LX since I can think, but lthe other day I was terribly disappointed.

After a 20 hour stay in Dubai, I was in F class on the flight to ZRH. Departure time 2.20am local, so 11.20pm my bodyclock. No problem, as 7h05 block time should give me a full night's sleep (a "full night" for me is six hours), as LX's First Class seats for me are the best of any European airline.

The cabin crew was a bunch of "rustic" middle-aged men who to tell by their accent came from some forelone valleys in Wallis respectively in Eastern Switzerland. Nothing wrong with that and - to tell by their manners - the fact that in their youth they obviously were trained in the art of mowing hay rather than in the art of cosmopolitan politeness. They didn't say good evening (forget about the addressing by name that's part of the usual HON treat at Swiss), they just grabbed my jacket and stuffed it in the overhead bin (hello? No hangers on board?), and overall I just didn't find them very polished. Well, anyway, that doesn't matter, because I was here to sleep.

After take-off the entire F cabin except 2 people wanted to go to sleep, so there was some shuffling about when beds were ´prepared. Now, instead of dimming the cabin lights somewhat to make it more comfortable for the large majority of pax that wanted to sleep, they left all lights on. And not only that, they made a lot of noise serving the two eating passengers: china, cutlery, glasses, speaking loudly to the pax, talking to each other across the cabin ("Du, channschd mal schaue ob's noch Zitroni im Eis hät?" - from row 3 to the front galley). Now this matters a bit, as it made sleeping a little difficult.

20 mins after tugging into my duvet I was only half asleep so my eyes were half open, so they came and asked whether I wanted to be woken up for breakfast. Well, it's a curteous question - but can you please ask it BEFORE I am half asleep...

Finally some calm after about 1 hour after departure, or at least I fell asleep, thinking "OK, this leaves me about 6 hours of sleep, until around 6am".

Well, I was wrong. For some reason at 4.30am body time (=2 hours before scheduled landing time!) the rustic men decided that it was time to get up and go to work. Trouble was that there was no cow to milk or hay to mew, so there we went: full cabin lights, lots of noice from china and cutlery from the galley, loud talking again, and around 5am they made a cabin announcement "we hope you caught some sleep". No I didn't, you morons! Shut up and dim the lights! When I slowly sat up in my seat, they came and pulled away the duvet, and I had to stop them from throwing me out of my seat. Imagining that I was not going to have breakfast was too much for them.

Behind this anecdote lies a more fundamental flaw with this service experience on a shorter longhaul night flight on Swiss: they should know that in F class there are many people who only fly F to get some sleep. The flight is just short enough to get a good amount of sleep, and short enough to have dinner and breakfast at either side of the trip. These travelers don't care about food, about IFE, about anything - just the quality of the lie-flat seat and the opportunity to get some sleep. Of course there are people on different body times or those that can't sleep or those that simply want to taste the menu. But the goal should be to accomodate both. On the way out to DXB I was in F on Lufthansa from MUC, a night flight as well. There I woke up gently about 25 mins before landing by a cabin announcement that we were going to land, with people around me having breakfast already - but the crew had made an effort to have only dimmed light and not to make too much noise.

I am not sure whether this is LX "policy" to shorten pax' nights or whether it was the rustic men deciding that it's healthy to get up early and have some Birchermüesli.

If your experiences confirm that even in First they wake up people far too early, then I believe that LX should change that.

But maybe they do it on purpose, to make people forget that LX doesn't offer any PJs in First ...

flysurfer

There's a reason why I do not fly LX.
Actually, many reasons.

airoli

First, I had a good laugh at your very lively description of the "rustic men" and this kind of service that I have experienced myself a lot - but that was in C and I found it inacceptable. Very sad to hear that the same "treatment" continues in F.

Not sure if I would have had the nerve, but with those "rustic" people it sometimes helps to be just as heavy handed and tell them, plainly and outspoken, to shut the f*ck up as people want to have peace and quiet.

Or, more philosphical and to quote Spock: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

San Gottardo

Shall we take them seriously given that you even dare flying Lufthansa Y?

Snoopy

Ahhhh, but had they dimmed the lights and not given the full service to the two pax who wanted to eat and have dinner and breakfast I have no doubt there would have been a thread entitled

"Crappy service in F DXB-ZRH" - The cabin crew just wanted to sleep!

flysurfer

You better do, or I'll rebook the "experiment" to F.

flysurfer

Another reason not to fly LX!

LXA350

Hilarious I must say....lol

But in general it anoys me as well that LX doesn't put an effort in to speed up their service on their short night flights also from JFK for instance and serve passengers fast and offer breakfast as close to arrival as possible and not tell you 30 minutes before landing that there is no time to make me a capuchino. Seriously they need to be more flexible

flysurfer

Even more reason not to fly LX.
Cool thread! Carry on! ^

rorschi

What LH did to me on my flight to BKK

Had my first coffee of the day after immigration


Ususally, LX switches the light on in F much later than in C. And they always asked me whether I want a coffee.

But who knows whether they have enhanced the early-morning procedure in the recent past, i.e. press all light-buttons at the same time. We read a lot about enhancemenets the last days. Ah no, that all was about LH...

My dear TFM/TNPMM: Is there any airline you use with conviction?

flysurfer

Yep. HomeAir.

San Gottardo

As I wrote above: you can perfectly serve dinner/breakfast to pax WITHOUT full illumination, songs and bell. Dimmed lights, quiet conversation,... It can be done discretely. Even LH manages. And that's the thing: what world do we live in where the Germans do things more discretely than the Swiss?

San Gottardo

Funny. This is like two BMW drivers talking to each other and saying "you know I am really disappointed. On rainy days that 355 hp 8 cylinder 4.8 litre engine makes 2 decibels more noise than on sunny days. They should really change that".

Upon hearing that comes a Lada driver and says "even more reason not to buy a BMW. Carry on!", and potters off.

Read "Lada" = "flysurfer's preferred First carrier, Lufthansa"

sentom

LOL! ^

i think LX F is really good, the seat/bed is great, but i enjoy LH F just as much. sorry to hear that you were robbed your sleep. fortunally never happend to me on either carrier.

rorschi

it happened to me once - with LX in F...

When LX used to fly to LOS, I made the "mistake" to book F on the way back (it's about 5 hours...). The dinner-service took not too long, but I was very hungry and stayed awake until they finished the service with the last course. Then somewhere over Algeria I fell asleep - and being woken up a half an hour before landing at ZRH (especially the need for standing up because the maître de cabine forced me - the bed had to be transformed into a seat for landing) after about three hours of sleep was really DIFFICULT

If they let the passengers continue to sleep after landing for some hours, it would be less a pain... YAWN