Following a very successful skiing holiday in the Alps, I was booked to return to London in Swiss’s short-haul Business Class. My itinerary was as follows:
Flights: LX2811, LX 326
Class: Business
Dep: GVA (14:10)
Trans: ZRH (1h25m)
Arr: LHR (17:50)
Planes: Bombardier CS100, A321
Here’s the review for the first flight, LX2811:
I got to the airport in plenty of time and had a couple of hours to spend in the lounge, review to follow. Unfortunately, though we were ready to push-back on time, a passenger who’d boarded requested not to fly for some reason, and our departure time was pushed back the guts of an hour while they tried to retrieve her bag from the hold.
The CS100 is a fresh, modern addition to SwissAir’s domestic fleet, and felt much the same as an Airbus from the inside. On the ceiling panel of each row, there’s a screen. The screen was only about the size of a large phone. Although it only displayed the safety video and promotional footage on this flight, I imagine it can be configured as an inflight entertainment screen.
Waiting in every seat was a refreshment wipe and bottle of water.
I had pre-reserved a front-row seat, and was very thankful of it through all the waiting: I could stretch my flailing legs right into the aisle and galley. To add icing to the cake, I had the whole row to myself. As with most European Business Class configurations, it features enhanced soft product, but the seat itself is just an economy row at the front of the plane, with the middle seat guaranteed free.
The crew were very helpful and polished, and it still amazes me that all LX’s crew are tri-lingual (French, German and English). In fact, half the passengers were made up of crew, as this flight transports Geneva-based crew to SwissAir’s main hub in Zurich for flights leaving from there. It was quite reassuring to know that there were about 12 pilots onboard!
Flying across from the Alps, there were some amazing views to be had. The light and visibility were perfect, and I moved across into the window seat for a while to gaze out.
Despite being such a short flight, some nibbles were distributed to Business Class passengers, in the form of little bowls. Essentially 3 different mini-meals, they were very tasty. There were ramekins of fish, meat and veg. I must admit that I committed the cardinal flight-review sin of forgetting to take pictures of the meal.Please forgive me.
Landing soon followed, and the short-hop had come to an end. Unfortunately, due to the delay, I only had a matter of minutes to visit Zurich’s Business Class lounge, before my next leg to London.
Check back soon for lounge reviews and the London-leg of the flight, which featured some very nice food indeed…
The airline is called Swiss. Swissair went out of business in 2002…