I get irritated when an adjective is used as a brand name, so here’s how we got there: Swissair used to be the national Swiss airline until its bankruptcy in 2002. From its ashes rose Swiss International Airlines, trading as Swiss (LX).  Swiss is now part of the Lufthansa (LH) Group, and a member of the Star Alliance.  If you search for flights on any of the LH group’s websites, Swiss flights will appear in the list of options (if they serve that airport) and their fares seem to match those of LH.  I’d never flown with them before, but heard good things, so I snapped up couple of tickets I found on their website at an amazing promo fare for First Class flights to Nairobi, way back in May 2019 (just £3000 for two).  Swiss only has a first class cabin on its long haul routes, so UK pax connect in Business Class to Zurich (ZRH) or Geneva (GVA) before joining their long haul flight in First.  So this is a review of the London (LHR) to ZRH, and back, flights Mr A and I shared in mid February 2020.

We checked in just after 4am at LHR Terminal 2. It was pretty busy, despite the early hour. LX check in desks were towards the left side of the hall and we walked right up to an agent at the First Class desk.  He processed us quite slowly for this LX345 flight and for the connecting LX296 to Nairobi, and he was very laid back. I asked which lounge we had access to and he told us “Lufthansa”.  That made sense, as LX and LH are partners. But when we got through security we found he didn’t mention that the lounge didn’t open until 5am!  Star Alliance airlines had 3 flights departing at 6, so why can’t they open the lounges before 5??!

I could see through the door that an LH agent was at the reception desk, but she tried her best to ignore us, but told us to come back at five.  So we went for a walk around the terminal, but found that everything was closed and only due to open at five. So maybe it’s the airport, not LH, that insists on 5am openings??

When we returned to the LH lounge at 05:00 we found we had to queue for a seemingly long ten minutes, which added to my irritation.  Once inside, the lounge appeared ‘Germanic’ in that it seemed to favour functionality over design, but we proceeded to the rear of the large space, to the Senator lounge, because we were treated as First class pax.  The lady at reception had given us ‘tickets’ with a bar code to gain access through an ungated entranceway.

This ‘special’ area was as uninspiring as the Business lounge, save for one wall being covered in a tropical forest wall hanging.  There was a buffet offering help yourself breakfast items (plus some other foodstuffs) and drinks. Not a lot appealed to me, so I just grabbed a bowl of muesli, some fruit, a juice and a coffee.  My plan to check in in good time and have a relaxing cooked breakfast in the lounge didn’t quite work out!

We boarded our Airbus A321, registered HB-IOL, at 05:40.  Just like on most European carriers, LX has the same seats in Business Class as in Economy, but the centre seat in the 3-3 rows is left vacant, to afford a little more space. The Business and Economy cabins are only separated by a curtain because they ‘flex’ the business class capacity according to demand.  But I found it very strange that the Business section didn’t have any identifying features, such as a different headrest cover, and the vacant middle seat didn’t have the table that BA uses to make the space look more ‘Business class’.  And our pre-take-off drink was just a small plastic bottle of water each!

Doors closed bang on time at 06:00 and the captain made a greeting announcement, which I always appreciate.  When an FA did the same moments later I was surprised to hear her say “welcome onboard this Star Alliance flight”, rather than “….Swiss flight”.  We pushed back from stand at 06:02, and took off from runway 27R at 06:16 into a dark and rainy sky. We were quite fortunate to have this on-time departure, because later in the morning as “storm Dennis” hit the area, lots of flights were delayed and cancelled.

At 06:18 the captain announced “cabin crew released” and the FAs set about preparing our breakfast.  We hadn’t been shown a menu, so the FA told us what was on offer, we chose and she returned to serve our choices. I had a bucks fizz (mimosa), a coffee, a small pot of birchermuesli, a herbed frittata, warm pepper salsa, cheese and a croissant.  I didn’t actually like the thick muesli, but who am I to tell the Swiss how to improve one of their national dishes!  The egg and salsa were nice, but I’m not a fan of potatoes for breakfast.  All to soon we were approaching a foggy ZRH, but we landed safely at 08:27 and we were on stand at 08:35, five minutes ahead of schedule.

Just 5 days later we were back at ZRH for flight LX316 to LHR.  Due to a tight 55 minute connection, the journey from the long haul international gates at ZRH to the non Schengen European gates in a luxury Mercedes van, and the transit security you have to go through, we only had enough time to grab a coffee in the Business Class lounge.

The lounge was very spacious and divided into different (but similar) sections. We found an almost deserted cosy section with views onto the airfield, and next-door, a smallish buffet and help yourself drinks area.  But here in ZRH the lounges are not very stylishly designed either.

Mr A found a stray wheelchair and pushed me to the departure gate (Swiss “couldn’t” do it”). We boarded our A320, registration HB-IJS at 07:05 for a flight scheduled to depart at 07:10.  Once again I was in seat 1F and everything was identical to the outbound sector in the A321. The captain announced that due to winds over London, UK Air Traffic Control were giving us a minimum 30 minutes delay to our departure, which explained the un-Swiss lack of boarding punctuality.  I reckon most pax don’t realise that the UK ATC can tell aircraft bound for our shores when they can start their journey.

But we pushed back from stand at 07:22 and were airborne from runway 28 at 07:36, just 26 minutes late.

Our breakfast tray was almost identical to the one we had out of LHR the previous weekend, apart from one fancier piece of cheese.  But the FAs were all very pleasant, speaking to us first in English, then in German after I’d used that language.

We landed at LHR (the weather wasn’t that bad) at 08:02 on runway 27R and were on stand just 5 minutes late at 08:10. Both LX and LH use gates at LHR which are very very close to immigration, which saves one a lot of time and walking distance.

Overall I found Swiss’ European Business Class to be very similar to most of the other legacy European carriers, though it lagged behind in terms of cabin decoration and menu planning. I think they could improve their ground  services to guide and assist pax with their transfer connections. Otherwise ZRH was a calm, spacious airport to connect through. 6/10

When we got to the T2 baggage hall we discovered that one of our three checked bags was not there! We went to the baggage services counter to report it and were told it was still in ZRH, but it would be on the next flight to LHR.  Baggage services is subcontracted by most airlines at LHR, so the person I was dealing with didn’t work for Swiss, so couldn’t give me a Swiss apology or explanation. He just said the bag was left behind because we had a tight connection. I reminded him 2 out of 3 bags had made the connection.  He told me the bag would arrive at LHR at 11:30 that same morning, but it might not be until tomorrow that it’s delivered to my home. I asked him if he could put a note in the system that I was going to hospital the next day, so it would be really helpful if I could get the bag today.  Remarkably the bag was delivered to me at 16:30 that afternoon.  Very impressive service recovery from LX!