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| Headrest of seat 4F (Businessa Class seat) on HB-JCL |
Ground Experience
Every flight starts at the bag drop desk. As a business class passenger, there are dedicated check-in desks for business class passengers. This meant that contrary to the economy class passengers, I didn't have to queue up to drop off my hold luggage. The lady at the desk was very helpful and my large case was taken away in no time.
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| Swiss divides its check-in desks between economy passengers, business passengers and first passengers |
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| Hold luggage |
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| Cabin bags |
After dropping my bag off, it was time to head through security. A business class ticket with Swiss grants you access to the priority lane. When I travelled through the priority lane, there wasn't anyone in front of me, so no queue to get through security. Unless you are travelling during peak summer season or the ski season, the normal security lanes aren't that busy early afternoon.
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| The Priority Lane at Geneva Airport is located at the far left-hand side |
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| Drinks in the Business Lounge |
I checked Flightradar24 prior arriving at the airport and saw that my plane was still in Marrakesh. This meant I could spend much longer in the lounge than expected; much better than waiting around in the departures area!
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| Quiet area in the lounge |
Geneva Airport
Geneva Airport welcomed over 17 million passengers in 2018. The busiest route from Geneva Airport is to London Heathrow (about 90 weekly flights). The airport serves over 100 destinations. Geneva Airport is a hub for Swiss and EasyJet Switzerland. Swiss operates its only long-haul flight (to JFK) outside of Zurich from Geneva. My flight left from terminal 1. In fact, its the only terminal in operation, unless you travel during the winter season, when terminal 2 is open to British carriers such as Tui, Jet2 and Flybe. Only A220 aircraft (the plane I will be flying on) are based at Geneva, and the airline operates 30 of these aircraft.
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| HB-JCL captured by @flyswiss001 on Instagram |
A gate was assigned to our aircraft and I headed over soon after.
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| Boarding HB-JCL |
One of the perks of flying Business Class with Swiss is priority boarding. Boarding at Geneva Airport in the satellite terminals, is often quite chaotic. This is due to the absence of a dedicated business class boarding line. Instead, the airport employees invite all business class passengers to board first, but a lot of economy passengers also stand up and add themselves to the business class boarding.
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| Swiss A220-300 registered HB-JCL |
Flight information
Aircraft: HB-JCL (1 year old)
Flight number: LX2813
Scheduled departure time: 15:45
Actual departure time: 17:02
Scheduled arrival time: 16:40
Actual arrival time: 17:36
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| Seats on Swiss's A220-300 |
Following the warm welcome from the crew, a water bottle and a sealed handwipe was waiting for me at my seat, today 4F. I chose that seat in advance, during booking thanks to the advance seat reservation possible if a business class passenger.
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| Seat Selection on a Swiss A320 (not the same aircraft that I flew on) |
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| Baggage loading |
On this gloomy day, all I could think about was how tight my connection would be at Zurich, and possibly missing out on the opportunity of visiting a Business Class lounge in Zurich. Luckily, we were soon ready to go.
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| Wingview from seat 4F |
After a short taxi to runway 22, take off was imminent!
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| During our ascent, Geneva Airport was visible from above |
A220-300 Specifications
The A220-300 is most certainly my favourite regional jet. The very large windows are perfect to gaze out at the beautiful landscape.
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| Big windows on the A220 |
The A220-300 also offers some sort of InFlight Entertainement for passengers. In addition to Swiss using these mini screens to showcase the Safety video, Swiss uses them to show flight information (speed, time to destination...) and a moving map! These features are shown in French, English and German.
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| Mini-screens above the seats on the A220-300 |
The seat
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| Business Class seat (3F) on HB-JCL |
The A220 seat configuration is layed out in a 2-3 configuration in economy. In business class, the middle seat is blocked out. This means, you do not have a direct neighbour! The seat pitch in Business Class on Swiss's A220s is 34 inches (Source: SeatGuru) whereas for economy class passengers, the seat pitch is 31 inches. The width of each seat is the same in economy and business (17 inches). Basically, the business class seat is typo to the economy one, but with additional legroom.
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| Business Class Seats |
InFlight Catering
On this short 34 minutes flight, Business Class passengers were provided with a sandwich and a beverage of your choice (soft drink, hot drink, alcohol...). However, economy passengers are only provided with a bottle of water. Swiss gives out Swiss chocolate to all passengers.
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| Sandwich choice of cheese or meat |
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| Swiss chocolate was handed out to all passengers |
Usually on these short flights from Geneva to Zurich, you get served a "meal" that looks more like this:
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| Typical Swiss Business Class catering on short flights like this one |
This flight was probably only catered with sandwiches due to the quick turnaround required at Geneva, after the delayed inbound Marrakesh flight.
The crew members were efficient, right after the seat belt sign was switched off, they started serving the snacks. The flight was met with quite a bit of turbulence which led to a few spilled drinks.
During the descent, a crew member informed the passengers which gate to head to for their connecting flight (if applicable).
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| Long-haul planes parked at E gates |
Subsequent to the delayed flight, I rushed over to the Swiss Business Lounge at the A gates before my next flight.
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned earlier, this flight was booked part of a two-segment trip to London via Zurich in business class. If you were to book Geneva to Zurich in business class, this ticket would cost you at least 372CHF one-way. Most people travelling on this short 30 mins flight will be connecting onto another flight in Zurich. My flight only cost 150CHF.
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So is it worth 372CHF? Certainly not. But in my case (I payed much less), I would say so, yes. My flight was delayed so having access to the lounge instead of staying in the departures area was very welcome. Even without this delay, skipping all the queues if it is at check-in, security or boarding, it really makes a difference in my opinion. Sometimes, if you factor in extras you wish to pay for on an economy class ticket (hold luggage, food, seat selection...), it may work out cheaper to purchase a business class ticket, when a special offer is available. I wouldn't recommend booking this business class flight with Miles & More miles, due to the high amount required : 20,000. I would rather save them up to redeem on a one-way business class flight from Europe to the USA, for only 56,000 miles. If you have quite a large Miles & More balance, why not fly trans-Atlantic in first class for 91,000 miles?
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