Paul's flight report for
Swiss International Air Lines
Flight LX289
JNB - ZRH / Airbus A340-300
Flight Time: 10hrs 10minutes
Business Class

General Impression: 🐑🐑🐑🐑

Before the Flight :
Check-in Process: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Transit Counter: N/A
Lounge: 🐑🐑🌿
Information: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Boarding @ Gate: 🐑🐑
Staff @ these points: 🐑🐑🐑
Boarding in Cabin: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Welcome Drinks: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Punctuality: 🐑🐑🐑🐑, on time

During the Flight :
Food presentation: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Food quality: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🌿
Drinks: 🐑🐑🐑🐑🌿
Service Procedure: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Amenity Kit: 🐑🐑🐑🌿
Entertainment System: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Seat Quality: 🐑🐑🐑
Legroom: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Lavatories: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Cleanliness: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
General Atmosphere: 🐑🐑🐑🌿
Announcement Pilots: 🐑🐑🐑
Announcement Cabin: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Cabin Crew: 🐑🐑🐑🐑

After the Flight :
De-Boarding: 🐑🐑🐑🐑
Baggage Delivery: 🐑🐑🐑

—-
🐑 = bad, a lot of work needs to be done
🐑🐑 =not good, you will be busy with corrections
🐑🐑🐑 = good & normal, nothing special
🐑🐑🐑🐑 = high level, but the icing on the cake is missing
🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑 = topnotch, leave me here!
🌿= Half a Point/sheep

—-
The crew makes the difference.

Once again this flight has proved that the crew is the biggest matchmaker.

On the Ground:
Check-in was handled the African way. Economy Groups at the First Class Counter, First Class PAX at Business Class and so on. But... It worked and queue was rather short.

Agents was ok. No big interaction with customers.

No queues at the security checkpoint. Agents were ok.
No queue at emigration. It took us maybe 15 minutes to clear all formalities from Check-in until airside.

The Shongololo Lounge is currently under renovation and Passengers can use the Aspire Lounge in Johannesburg. Maybe this would have been the better option as the Star Gold Lounge.
Thanks to the Star Alliance Gold Status we were able to use the South African Premium Lounge.

The choice of food was ok but the quality, especially for the cold items, was disgusting. You could see that the products were waiting there for hours.
As everywhere in South Africa, drinks are served from a bar and the choice was ok.

The gate was a little chaotic too. No announcement from the gate crew or anything alike. They simply hold up either a sign or yell who is allowed to board.
Staff was ok. Not really motivated or friendly.

The crew was super present in the cabin whilst boarding. Super helpful to passengers and friendly. They took the time to interact with the customers.

The seats were equipped with a blanket & pillow as well as a headphone.
A water bottle was ready as well as the amenity kit.

Welcome drinks (champagne, juice, water) were distributed as well as hot towels.
Menu cards were distributed and passengers were already asked on the ground what they would like to eat.

Inflight:

The seats are comfortable and ok and each row is equipped with 5 seats. Either in a 1-2-2 or 2-2-1 abrest.
We choose two seats in the middle of the aircraft so each of us had direct aisle access.

They crew was quite fast in serving an aperitif followed by dinner.
A full-size tray with a choice of first course, salad and cheese was served and then the hot meals were distributed.
The food tasted good and was delicious.
For every single item the crew passes with a full drink service.
Trays were collected and then desert and coffee/digestive was served.
Swiss chocolates were distributed after the desert.

After the service they did pass with duty free and then switched off the lights for a night's rest.

The crew on this flight was superb. They were present in the cabin and interacted with the customers. They always had a time for a chat and you could see the massive difference to our outbound flight.

Bathrooms were cleaned throughout the flight and always refilled.

The amenity kit is ok and what I like most is the innovation Swiss has concerning them. Swiss is the only carrier who tries to be different. Once it is a hat, an iPad cover and now they work together with Victorinox on different products.
The kit has the regular content. Socks, eyemasks, toothbrush etc.

The inflight entertainment is good and the screens are really big for business class. The system reacts very fast and is super reliable.

The aircraft would have been equipped with wifi. As it was a complete night flight we did not use it.
Prices for wifi are insane. 220MB of download costs 59CHF (61$).
With other carriers we payed for unlimited access for the whole duration of the flight 29$.
So this is unacceptable.

They started with breakfast service about 2 hours prior landing in Zurich.
You could fill in the order form the night before and a full-size tray was served with all the items. Food was good and more than sufficient for the time of the day.

All in all a great flight.
Once more you could see who a good cabin crew can make such a huge difference in service.

Swiss needs to work at their consistency cabin wise. Would every flight be like this one they would have an awesome product.