This was truly the best crew that I’ve had- as far back as I can remember.
Hi there, my name is Kevin and I make honest and to the point narrated trip
reports about flights and hotels all over the world. This is episode 131,
in Business Class on SWISS International Airlines, the 27th airline featured on
the channel. The full Zurich transit experience and trip report to Athens begins in 10 seconds.
Welcome to Zurich. I just landed a few moments ago on my flight from
Amsterdam. Zurich is I think one of the most beautiful airports in Europe and SWISS has
a storied history which we will get into, but first if you’d like to know the exact
fare that I paid or my next five videos in queue, check out the description below.
I haven't transited through Zurich in over a decade, but I’m happy to see that
it is just as organized, well designed and poised as I remembered it to be.
As we head out onto the balcony overlooking the tarmac, a quick riddle before we head to the
lounge. What do gentle king cobras and sponsored unbiased reviews have in common? Well, both of
them don’t exist. Imagine if SWISS was paying me to take this flight and then I turned around and
presented this video as if it was an unbiased review- it’s a farce that happens far too often
and that precisely why this video is unsponsored. Today you’re going to hear my personal honest
opinion about the experience and nothing more because this flight was 100% self funded.
Alright, time to head to the lounge- which is a bit weird to me. Sharing an
entrance are the SWISS Business Class Lounge and the SWISS Senator Lounge.
The distinction between the two, which Lufthansa also implements has always confused me.
Singapore Airlines also separates Business Class Passangers from Star Alliance Gold Passangers on
Economy tickets but for Singapore, the SilverKris Business Class lounge is more prestigious. Here,
the opposite is true as Lufthansa and SWISS First Class members use the Senator Lounge.
In the end though it really doesn’t make a different as from what I could
see both lounges were mirrored copies of each other with locked glass doors in the middle.
I was flying Business Class and have Star Gold, so I suppose that’s why
the very friendly lounge check in agent didn’t point me in a particular direction,
since I could access either one of them. The lounge is beautifully Swiss with four
primary zones. First the food zone which had a limited but quality selection of foods and
copious amount of booze and coffee and bistro style seating. Next was the main seating area
behind with the brown leather chairs which was very comfortable but got very busy at times.
The third area which I really enjoyed was the quiet area just up a level which had lots of
lounge chairs and black leather sofas and it just made for a very nice place to spend a few
hours and get some work done. I also very much appreciate how comprehensive the outlets at each
seat were. Australians, Kiwis, South Africans and Indians were still out of luck though.
Alright time to head to the gate on an evening where lots of flights were delayed- though
mostly by 15-30 minutes. I appreciated they they keep the board so updated.
All of those waiting passengers certainly weren’t at the B gates though.
Our aircraft for today, the second oldest plane in SWISS’s fleet is a
27 year old A321-100 originally delivered to Swissair in 1995. After Swissair’s bankruptcy,
she spent a few years at Turkish Airlines before returning to SWISS in 2007.
Let’s check out today’s stats. We would be taking off a bit over an hour late and heading
up to 37000 feet for our two hour flight down to Athens, landing around 40 minutes behind schedule.
Boarding was, as you’d imagine in Switzerland, orderly and automated.
A few words about SWISS’s history. Swissair and SWISS International Airlines are not the
same airline. Swissair went bankrupt in 2002 and many of it’s assets were transferred or sold to
Crossair, which was Swissair’s separate regional partner. Crossair rebranded to SWISS International
Airlines and kept their old IATA code, which is why SWISS flights are designated as LX. Coming out
of bankruptcy, the leadership team knew in order to maintain a sizable flag carrier, they would
need to be part of a larger airline group and so talks with the big three: Air France-KLM, British
Airways and Lufthansa began. Lufthansa agreed to buy SWISS with the takeover completing on July 1
2007. Since the takeover, Lufthansa has positioned SWISS as the smaller, premium brand of the group.
As we step on board, let’s take a look around. You’ll likely notice that the cabin interior is
near identical to the Edelweiss A320 I fly down from Amsterdam on. The only two differences here
are that the SWISS seats don’t have head rests or entertainment device holders. Strange to
think the Edelweiss plane was better outfitted, but its not a problem for a short 2 hour flight.
Legroom was better here though, I’d estimate around 33-34 inches of pitch. Service began with a
bottle of water and a wet wipe and I began to get a feel for one of the best crews I’ve ever had.
Pushback began and the flight attendants serving the business class cabin were genuinely thrilled
that there was someone on board filming everything and setup to film the take off.
And then all of the goodies came. I’ll take a closer look after take off. So, this crew
was great for three reasons. Great conversational service style, super attentive and accommodating,
the purser spoke six languages and of course the free stuff. But I’ll note
about the goodies. I get this occasionally after people see I’m filming. If and when it happens,
I watch to see how the crew interact with the other guests in the cabin.
If it’s the same as with me, then they’re a great crew- if not the same,
then I don’t mention the free stuff. In today’s case they very much treated everyone the same.
I will admit though that having two crew for three passengers in business class probably had a bit to
do with it. And they were just so excited to be going to Greece! They were only overnighting but
you would think they were going to Mykonos for a week's vacation. Just an all around lovely crew.
After a nice tour of the airport we were lined up and ready to take off to the northwest before
turning around and heading to the south east. The spoolup and take off are next.
And here you can see the airport in the distance as we will fly just south of it.
It was pretty quiet up here and considering how old this aircraft is, it's maintained impeccably.
Service started with a glass of wine and some crackers. On a clear day the
first 20 minutes of the flight would have spectacular views of the Alps,
but we just managed to get a few minutes peak. The crew anticipated I’d want to take a photo
so they just gave me the bottle- and a pretty nice wine it was. At $18 a bottle
that’s pricer than what you’d find on many long haul airlines these days.
For dinner, there was a choice of a roasted chicken with rice or a vegetable ratatouille.
I went for the chicken. When I mentioned how I enjoyed the chicken served cold on
my recent Air France flight because I’d rather have cold juicy chicken than warm dry chicken,
well this is the one I was thinking about. Everything was good and a nice quality but the
chicken was just dry as a bone. The cheese and the plum cake were very good though.
After dinner, a few more pieces of chocolate because, how many is too
much? And a look at what I was given. The plush and sticker book I’d expect a
full service airline to have for kids- but I was impressed they just normally cart around
branded USB drives and massive chocolate bars. All will be going into my collection.
A quick look at the retro but pristine bathroom
and then it was already time to begin our descent into a very dark Athens,
approaching the airport from the north.
Unfortunately, SWISS leaves the lights on when landing in
the dark so I didn’t have any great night shots.
A quick taxi later and we were at our gate… but we would be using stairs and
taking buses to the other terminal. Which I never complain about. 10 minutes later I
was enjoying the fresh Greek air on the way to my hotel.
Let’s head into the Flip Flop Score. Overall it was a great flight and lounge experience made
all the better by a genuine and lovely crew who all deserve raises. I really hope you enjoyed
this video today. If you did, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe so you don’t miss a beat.
I’ll see you next time at the Athens Capital Center Hotel, part of the MGallery Collection.