An Eating Trip to Spain: Arzak, Etxebarri, Lufthansa 747-8 J, Swiss A220 Y / 777 J

[yflyer]

I normally like to be among the first to board planes. It makes it easier for me to take photos of the cabin for the TR, and maybe even gives me enough time to check out other seats on the plane before other pax board.

But today, we boarded midway during the boarding process, and many pax were already in their seats.



No matter. Let's just take things as they come. I snapped pics in rapid fire succession...hoping that at least some would be ok, without a stray arm or a leg from another pax intruding into the frame...

Swiss 777 Business Class had an intriging layout, which could be broadly characterize as a staggered 1-2-2 layout, comprising seats that reclined into fully flat beds.



In this layout, some of the seats were highly prized "throne" seats: single seaters with shelf space on both sides. These throne seats could be reserved at extra charge at time of booking, but the charge was waived for Star Alliance Gold members, which was how I snagged a throne seat for this flight...



This was a fairly dense J cabin layout...



As the boarding process continued, cabin crew weaved past boarding pax and offered J pax pre-departure beverages...

I took my seat. Quite comfortable. Each seat came with soft white pillow and a blanket.



I appreciated the space on both sides of the throne seat...



There was storage space under the console on my left...



...and a raised partition on my right, where the tray table was stowed...



...along with some additional storage...



Each seat came with noise-cancelling headphones...

[yflyer]

Reading light...



...that came on with a push...



Another, warmer, light in the corner...



Clearly labelled seat controls on the armrest...



More controls under a flap...



Both USB and A/C power...

[yflyer]

Large IFE screen...



...with a clean, elegant UI...



...and a decent selection of entertainment options, though the number of movies, TV and music selections paled in comparison to SQ.



There was also an IFE controller under the seat armrest, but I mostly reached forward and used the touchscreen to operate the IFE...



Small fold-down table under the screen...



Long cubby hole under the screen...



...where the seat would extend into when fully reclined into a lie-flat bed...

[yflyer]

This was quite a comfortable seat to relax in (Pic from later in the flight)...



Time for a pre-departure beverage...I got the attention of a passing cabin crew member...

"May I have a glass of champagne, please?"

"Sure!"

[yflyer]

There were menus and an amenity kit at each seat...


The contents of the Victorinox-branded amenity kit...



Two menu cards, the dinner menu, and the breakfast menu...



The breakfast menu doubled as a breakfast order card, which you filled up with the provided pen, and passed to the cabin crew.



As for the dinner menu, starting 1 March 2023, for the next 3 months, pax in Swiss First, Business and Premium Economy would be treated to cuisine conceived by Michelin-starred chef Bernadette Lisibach, featuring cuisine from the Swiss Canton of St Gallen...



No concept of international or Asian dishes on the menu here, everything on the menu was Swiss...



There was a choice of 2 starters and 3 mains, along with cheese and dessert.

The wine selection...



Beverages...

[yflyer]

The safety video was played...this was the first safety video I had ever seen with an explicit notice that alcohol personally brought onboard...



...could not be consumed (A rule that applies to every airline and country)....

[yflyer]

Cabin all prepped and ready for departure...



Pushback from Terminal E, and a fairly long taxi to Runway 34 for departure on a very clear evening...



It would be an 11 hour 50 minute flight to Singapore today.

Right after take-off, a video was played with news and updates about Swiss. Today's video update announced that Swiss would be rolling out the Airbus A350 in 2025...



The video also introduced Swiss's new Premium Economy product, which was in fact fitted on this very aircraft, just behind the J cabin. I resolved to head back to take a look later...



After take-off, I checked out the IFE music selection...



As for sound quality, I found the supplied noise-cancelling headphones just average (SQ's were much better...)...



The IFE had 3D maps courtesy of Airshow...



This was pretty similar to Airshow 3D on other planes, including SQ's fleet.



Wifi was available on this flight, however it was based on data usage, and not time-based, so I gave it a miss, as it was very difficult to predict how much data one was going to use.

[yflyer]

The bathrooms...



Toiletries made for Swiss by Soeder of Zurich...

[yflyer]

I took a stroll around the cabin. This was a fairly dense business class layout. That said, overall J cabin ambience was ok...

[yflyer]

Back in my seat I folded down my tray able in anticipation of dinner...



The tray table was large and stable...



The cabin crew came round with tableclothes and asked for my choice of beverage...I opted for a G&T...



I had previously picked the cured sea bass as my starter, and the panfried pikeperch as my main.

Both the starter and the main course were served together on a tray, together with the cheese course...



This was a fairly simplified meal service compared the course-by-course concept on many other airlines (Even sister airline LH served each course separately on our outbound SIN-FRA sector),

On a positive note, the cabin crew were happy to serve me a glass of white wine at the same time, in addition to my initial order of a G&T.




This was a delicious Swiss white, a Tobias Cuvee Blanche 2022, made from a blend of Rivaner and Johanniter grapes...

[yflyer]

I tucked in...

The cured fish with pancake was very tasty...



My main of pikeperch was decent too, although I thought the portion was a tad small for a J main course...



Dessert was served separately, after the tray was cleared...



I asked for a glass of red wine to go with my cheese course...



Lindor chocolate to finish...

[yflyer]

After all that I asked to try the Grappa...



...and finally I couldn't resist asking to try the Johnett Swiss single malt 7 year old whisky...



What a miniscule portion of whisky...were the cabin crew about to cut me off?

In any case, that was all I ordered before turning in for the night...

[yflyer]

It was now time to sleep, but before that, I decided to take a stroll through the aircraft...

I headed through the curtains into Economy...

Y on this 777 aircraft was 10-abreast 3-4-3 (Yikes!)...



Not my favourite layout, and this was a full flight. I began to get flashbacks of past flights in Emirates' dreaded 10-abreast 777's...no fun at all...

By contrast, SQ's 777-300ER's were configured in a very civilized 9-abreast 3-3-3 in Economy, which felt much more spacious. I think our upgrade to business class was money well spent.

I had a brief look at the new premium economy product, which was a brand new fixed shell design, laid out in 8-abreast 2-4-2...



The PEY seats took up the first 3 rows of the Y cabin, and was not a separate cabin.

As all seats were occupied, I wasn't able to try out the seats, or examine them in detail, but they looked to be worth a try, if the price was right.

[yflyer]

I returned to my seat and prepared to rest...

I reclined the seat to fully flat bed mode...



This was a very soft and comfortable bed. You were even able to adjust the softness/firmness level (I believe there was an air cushion within the seat)...



The bed was very long, with ample legroom to fully stretch out..



That said, the cubby hole wasn't particularly large, so some folks might feel that they were in too narrow a space, maybe just a little.

I lay down and went to bed, only waking up 6 hours later...

What a good night's sleep. Whether that was because of the comfortable bed, or the quantity of liquor consumed onboard, is for the reader to decide...



By that time, we were over South India, with about 4 hours left to run. While I was asleep, we had overflown Turkey, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Dubai and had crossed into the Indian subcontinent just south of Mumbai.

I raised the window shades for just a moment to take a peek outside...



It was bright and sunny over India.

I took a stroll to the galley to stretch my legs...a few snacks were laid out on the counter...

[yflyer]

Now that I was awake, I spent some time checking out the IFE...



Top Gun: Maverick was a featured movie...



Picture and audio quality were good...



There was a documentary on the process of taking a Lufthansa A340-600 out of storage and back into service...



This was worth a watch...with scenes of vast desert aircraft storage facilities, used to store aircraft grounded during the pandemic...



Aircraft from all over...



Etihad and AF A380's, as well as BA 747's...



The documentary's climax was of course the LH A346 taking off for its first flight in a long time...



Worth a watch if you are an aviation enthusiast!