72 hours of travelling from London to Seoul in absolute comfort (LX F and OZ C)

[stargold]

It was really an extremely short flight from Milan to Zurich and the actual flight time was barely 40 minutes. To receive a sandwich and a full drinks service, even taking into account being in Business Class, was quite impressive. When I turned my attention to the view outside, I was greeted with a slightly cloudy but nevertheless expansive view of the Swiss Alps beneath. It kept me interested for the remainder of the flight, taking photos and enjoying the views of the mountain tops that - it's the summer - only had a little bit of snow on top.



The beef sandwich served in C



Tiny specks of snow in an otherwise green mountain top



A bit more snow at this end



The view would have been even better if it was less cloudy, but I can hardly complain...


In no time at all, it was time to start our descent and the seatbelt sign was turned on, but not before a nice bright red square of Swiss chocolate was handed out. A small but nice touch. We actually flew over Zurich Kloten airport along the way but had to overshoot in order to approach it from the correct direction - at one point, as the aircraft was turning, I got a very nice view of a small river too.



Thank you for flying Swiss!



Zurich Kloten



A sweeping view of the river, some fields and small villages


The landing video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sC-21Jmp3c


We landed on time at 19:10 and quickly taxied to the gate in Terminal A. My first time in Zurich airport in more than 10 years - it was all quite exciting. Many of the passengers appeared to be on a connecting flight, and I hardly saw anyone waiting for their bags at the belt when I made my way to the baggage reclaim. Thankfully my bags came out very quickly, by 19:25 and I was out past the customs inspection in no time at all.

Overall, considering the very short length of the flight, it was a surprisingly good flight once I left the 80's-style Malpensa airport behind. The aircraft was cute, the service was excellent and the food/beverage was very satisfactory for a 40-minute flight. It was my first encounter with Swiss International Air Lines (I had only flown Swissair previously) and it put me in a very positive mood in preparation for my next flight, the long haul First Class to LAX.

Some more photos:



An Austrian Arrows aircraft parked near ours at ZRH



Our pilot busy with paperwork...



One last look at the Jumbolino



Almost no-one waiting for their bag!

[stargold]

Thankfully at least a "proper" coffee machine



Cookies/biscuits and fruits



Newspapers and departure info screen


All in all, I would say that one should aim to arrive at MXP as late as possible when flying on LH or LX. In my case, I had to leave plenty of room for delays as I was on separate tickets for the connection at MXP, but had I been connecting on the same ticket, I would have been quite happy to have skipped the lounge altogether.

At 17:40, sufficiently bored after the snooze, I made my way to the boarding gate which turned out to be a bus gate. Argh! When the gate agent saw me taking pictures, she told me to stop - I wasn't sure why, but I thought it was best not to annoy them so I put away the camera. Boarding was scheduled to commence at 17:55 and it did start on time - the sooner I left Malpensa the better! There was a 10 or so minutes' wait on the bus while we waited for it to fill up.



The dreaded bus gate


After a brief drive, we pulled up next to the Swiss Avro RJ100. Now, it's the first time I've seen one of these aircraft up close, and the nickname "Jumbolino" sums it up perfectly - 4 engined, and very cute! I don't often get to fly on regional jets so it was a nice change of scenery for me in that regard.

The Swiss paint job looked great as they always do - I really love the clean lines of the plain red on white. Effortlessly classy, and they can probably keep the same design for the next several decades without it looking old. Most fellow passengers made their way up the steps to the cabin immediately, but some (including myself) stayed outside a little longer to take photos of the cute aircraft.



swiss - schweitz - suisse - svizzera - svizra. No wonder the cabin crew speak so many languages!



The registration of today's aircraft - HB-IXX



At the risk of sounding repetitive, cute!



"The four little engines that could"?



Up the steps - how do they handle wheelchair passengers, I wonder?



As I entered the aircraft, I was warmly welcomed by the Maitre de Cabine (equivalent to the Inflight Supervisor on SQ, Chief Purser on NH, etc) who showed me to my seat, 2F. The layout was 2-3 and the middle seat on the right side was blocked. The seats themselves were made by Recaro and I liked the design as well as the comfort - since there was no need for an IFE screen, the upper half of the seat contained the magazine space and the legroom was therefore better. Not that the legroom was tight to begin with - it was much more generous than my previous flight.



Two rows of C today. My seat mate had not yet arrived.



Very decent legroom - this is more like it!



Aforementioned seat design with the magazine space on top


We taxied out on time and took off at 18:27. One thing I found interesting is that the captain announces over the PA, "Cabin crew, take-off in one minute" which I haven't heard on other airlines before. Later I would also hear "Cabin crew, landing in ten minutes" from the cockpit as well - intended for the flight attendants, but quite cool nevertheless.

Here is the take-off video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC-6GP6c7Ik

The engines were surprisingly quiet even at full thrust, at least when heard from seat 2F. Nothing like the deafening turboprops where your ears go numb after a long take-off roll. Given that the BAe 146 were famous for their quiet operations, it's not surprising that Avro RJs, being the successor to the 146, would also be quiet.

Soon after, the drinks and snack cart was rolled out and each passenger in C were given a choice of beef or cheese sandwich. I decided to go for the beef, and received a pretty substantial looking sandwich with plenty of filling inside. Alongside the sandwich a choice of drinks was offered and I opted for orange juice, which was given out with a bottle of water as well. All with a smile from the excellent MdC - so far, Swiss were making a very good impression of the quality of their service onboard.

Sandwich tasted pretty good but the slightly sour taste of the coleslaw in the filling took me by surprise - I was almost quite sure that something had gone bad, but later realised it's just the normal taste of the coleslaw and stopped worrying. In any case, despite being quite hungry earlier on in the lounge I was no longer in the mood to eat the whole sandwich but made a decent stab at it.

[stargold]

Flight 2: LX1623 MXP-ZRH 22JUL (We), Avro RJ100, Seat 2F
STD: 1820 (On Time) STA: 1915 (On Time)

More of Milan airport...

After quickly clearing customs, I proceeded to the Swiss check-in desk on the departures floor. As I made my way, I continued to feel like I'm stuck in some sort of film set for an old airport scene - dark corridors, questionable colour schemes and a maze-like layout with no thought for passenger flow.

Once I reached the Swiss check-in desks, I found that they were still closed - the flight departed at 18:20 and I guess they don't expect people to turn up more than 2 hours early for a European flight. As there was already a queue forming even for the Business counters, I stood in line and looked around. There were some huge fashion advertising posters on the windows - interesting to look at, but why not leave the window open to let in more light? The terminal clearly needed it...



Oversized advertising posters blocking the light


I had to wait around 10 minutes until the check-in desk opened soon after, at 4pm. After the person in front was checked in, I proceeded to the counter where there was a little problem checking in for my connecting flight. Apparently, the ZRH-LAX flight was closed from check-in, which meant that the luggage tag would print "NOTOK" on the label. Although I've seen it a few times, I never knew what "NOTOK" meant - apparently, it means that the passenger is not properly checked in for one of the tagged flights, and they presumably wait to load the bag into the container until the go-ahead is given for the passenger.

The check-in agent instead suggested that I tag my bag only to ZRH and collect it there, to check it in for the LAX flight. I wondered whether LX offered a "night-before check-in" but she wasn't able to advise one way or the other - I decided to see what would happen once I reached ZRH. Naturally, I also had to wait until I reached ZRH before I could receive the ZRH-LAX boarding pass.

Otherwise, the check-in agent was quite charming and competent - no complaints there. She also advised that I was eligible to use the Fast Track once I reached security, and wished me a pleasant flight as I gathered my belongings and thanked her. I made my way towards the security check, which was down some escalators - but not before being faced with a huge poster of the latest Dolce & Gabanna "Italian swimmers" advertising. Nothing like a huge poster of men with perfect bodies to make you feel inadequate!



Business check-in, once opened



Air Moldova - never seen them before!



The aforementioned offending poster


Once I went down the escalators to the entrance of the security, there was a separate lane for Fast Track with someone to examine the boarding passes. I showed mine and went past the double doors, to be greeted with a scene that almost made me want to kiss my Business Class boarding pass. There were huge snaking queues waiting for the slow-moving x-ray machines on the non-Fast Track side, but I was able to join the front of the queue at the nearest X-ray because that's where the Fast Track corridor came out onto. I figured I saved more than 40 minutes of queueing - despite having loads of time until departure, I'd much rather sleep in the lounge than stand in the queue. I really, really hate queueing with a passion. Anyhow the whole process only took 5 or so minutes in total.

Once security was taken care of, I walked through the duty-free shops with some of the fanciest Italian fashion brands that you'd see on Bond Street in London. Following the signs towards the Lufthansa lounge, I was at the entrance of the lounge by 16:20. There were two separate sections to the lounge, one Senator lounge and one Business lounge. Normally, I would only be able to access the Business side with only a Business Class boarding pass and no Star Gold status, but I showed the receptionist my e-ticket confirmation of the connecting flight in First Class and she invited me to use the Senator side.

I walked in and - at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man - I disliked it instantly. Seemingly nothing about this airport was appealing to me, not even the lounge. It was tiny - 20 seats at most. The furniture were the old-style Senator lounge blue leather sofas and the whole place felt quite dull and dingy. I suppose one can't expect too much from a lounge where only a handful of European flights depart from, since most people wouldn't spend a huge amount of time here. Still, it was definitely on the lowest end of the lounge satisfaction scale. At least there were some free seats when I arrived - having to stand would have been the final straw!

There was a small variety of snacks on a trolley, most of them already gone. I tried a ham sandwich which was - you guessed it - underwhelming. There were at least some crisps (potato chips to the non-Brits) which they couldn't really get wrong even if they tried. I also found a selection of soft and alcoholic drinks as well as a "proper" ground espresso coffee machine (rather than the drip coffee that usually sits in the machine for hours upon hours). As I was getting quite hungry, I assembled a small plate of snacks and sat down on one of the sofas.

After firing up my laptop, I found that the WLAN was not free. Thankfully, it was operated by T-Mobile which meant I was able to use it with my T-Mobile UK username. After surfing the net for a while, tiredness from the all-nighter crept up on me and I ended up sleeping right in the middle of the lounge, with my head tilted back on the sofa. I just hope that I didn't snore...



Follow the signs...



It's a rather small lounge - less than 20 seats. Could get very crowded at peak times.



As you can see from the sofa, they're the "old style" SEN lounge furniture



One of the last few bits in the snack selection - generally pretty underwhelming



Peanuts, olives, and potato chips



Various drinks, both soft and alcoholic

[stargold]

In Y, the lunch service consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich, a bar of chocolate and a biscuit with a fruit filling. A choice of drinks was offered free of charge, including wine - good to see LH maintaining some service over and above the LCCs. The aforementioned purser stayed in C while two other male flight attendants served the Y cabin, who were incidentally much better than the purser.

The ham sandwich was okay, not great - the cheese filling in question was cream cheese rather than something like cheddar, which would have made much more sense. I liked the paper tray that the snacks came in - it was Lufthansa Italia design with the Italian flag motif stripe.



Lunch offerings


After lunch was finished and the waste collected away, the rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. I typed out some emails on my Blackberry (in flight mode, of course) and gazed out of the window occasionally. However, when it was time to use the bathroom, I got a nasty surprise - there were only two toilets for the entire aircraft, one at the front for C and one at the very back for Y. There was a queue of 5+ people by the time I reached the back and it was getting rather crowded in the galley area, with many frustrated sighs and huffs after a while. Really, I expected more than one bathroom for 100+ passengers...

Before long, I could see the Alps outside my window and I realised it was nearing the end of the flight. It was rather an uneventful flight overall, and for £49 I really couldn't complain despite minor annoyances. The aircraft was set to arrive on time, the food was edible and the seat comfort was acceptable.



View of the Alps without the snow


Video of the landing here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nitst6M8u8



One last look at the BMI A319...


We landed on time at 15:20 and taxied to the gate where I disembarked quickly at 15:30. My first time in Milan - and gosh, it was a really old looking airport. Walking towards the immigrations control, it really felt like a time warp back to the 80s. It really caught me off guard because I haven't really been in any airport recently that felt quite so old.



Making my way to the passport controls



An Emirates A330, presumably bound for DXB?


There was no-one in the queue when I reached the passport controls and I went to collect my luggage at the belt. Still in a time-warp daze, I made my way to the departures level where I found the Swiss check-in counters for my next flight.

[stargold]

An identity crisis - am I flying BMI or Lufthansa?

The boarding gate number was not shown until 12:00pm, and once shown I quickly made my way to Gate 23 which was a fair distance away from the main terminal, past where the SAA lounges used to be. There was a brief wait at the gate holding area before boarding commenced at 12:05pm and the process seemingly finished at 12:15pm. I was surprised to find that the aircraft was a BMI A319, with BMI crew, but Lufthansa seats and Lufthansa catering. A real mix-mash of the two airlines.

First impressions were not great, quite frankly - the "purser" (I put it in quotation marks because he really didn't act like one) was at the door welcoming passengers, while chewing gum. I generally find it a poor showing to be chewing gum at any time while serving passengers, let alone when welcoming them onboard. His body language and the manner of speech was also generally rather clumsy. Clearly I had been rather spoiled by my previous flights on SQ, NH etc where absolute professionalism is taken for granted.


View of the NZ 747 near our gate



XS and XXL next to each other



Long wait inside the airbridge...



The gum-chewing purser



BMI on the outside, Lufthansa on the inside! Note the Italian colour scheme on the headrest cover



The front office



More views of the BD E190 and NZ 747


I sat down in my seat, 5A, and found a good view of the wing and engine outside the window. Seat 5B thankfully remained empty, and looking towards the rear of the aircraft, most rows had empty middle seats. The legroom was surprisingly tight, given that I was on a convertible C seat so this row could have been part of the C cabin - I would have expected at least 34 inches but it felt more like 32.



Legroom was just about acceptable...


Despite the boarding process finishing in good time, we sat for quite a while longer still parked at the gate. The doors eventually closed at 12:40pm and we made our way to the runway where, after waiting for a few other aircraft to depart, we took off at 12:55pm. The seatbelt sign was turned off after 10 or so minutes and the lunch service began soon afterwards.

Video of the take-off here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhl7Qe97QVE



Climbing to cruising altitude



Bright red engine - quite striking!

[stargold]

Introduction

Having flown the "farewell 747" flights in SQ and NH back in March/April (you can find the trip reports for the outbound flight on SQ F here and inbound flight on NH F here), I decided that it was time to try out some new airline/routes when I sat down to contemplate the next trip back home in July. The SQ and NH flights were fantastic, of course, but I had now flown on their F twice each on the flagship longhaul routes and - as they say - variety is the spice of life!

Of all the Star Alliance options, the airline next on my "to do" list was Swiss. They have an excellent reputation for being consistently magnificent in their demonstration of Swiss hospitality and even their old First Class seat is still very much competitive in many ways, despite being well over 10 years old - so, I thought it would be nice to try them in F on a longhaul flight. Although I am aware that they have their fantastic new products on the A330, I couldn't find the reward space needed on the JFK route so I decided to save it for the next time and went for a flight to LAX instead.

And once I found the required space on the ZRH-LAX sector, it was time to decide how to get from LAX to my eventual destination, ICN. It had been a while since I had flown a longhaul sector on Asiana and after their very impressive showing on the ICN-NRT back in April, I decided to give them a try in Business Class on the LAX-ICN sector which was thankfully not under the blackout period unlike all their non-USA departures on my desired dates.

I was well aware that my intended routing of stopping at LAX was literally twice the distance of flying on the very convenient LHR-ICN nonstop, but when the opportunity to experience two excellent airlines in First Class and Business Class presents itself, I would have been mad to turn it down! In order to take advantage of the zone system curiosities, I needed to depart from MXP to fly to ZRH which then meant I had to fly from LHR to MXP first. So, what could have been one non-stop flight from London to Seoul turned into a convoluted journey of LHR-MXP-ZRH-LAX-ICN, with a night's stop at both ZRH and LAX. That said, I don't think I have surprised any of you familiar with my crazy routings between London and Seoul on my previous trip reports!

My itinerary looked like the following:

Flight 1: LH1873 LHR MXP 22JUL Dep: 1225 Arr: 1525 (Y-class)
Flight 2: LX1623 MXP ZRH 23JUL Dep: 1820 Arr: 1915 (C-class)
Flight 3: LX040 ZRH LAX 23JUL Dep: 1310 Arr: 1640 (F-class)
Flight 4: OZ201 LAX ICN 24JUL Dep: 1400 Arr: 1830+1 (C-class)

Overall, it represented nearly 72 hours of travelling. Even by my standards, it was going to be quite exciting! Here is the journey...

==============================================

INDEX

1. An identity crisis - LHR-MXP on LH/BD Y
2. Short but sweet - MXP-ZRH on LX C
3. A lucky preview - Zurich First Class Lounge
4. Understated, Refined, Personal - the Swiss First experience
==============================================
Flight 1: LH1873 LHR-MXP 22JUL (We), A319, Seat 5A
STD: 1225 (On Time) STA: 1525 (On Time)


Pre-flight

I found this flight for a very good price on Lufthansa.com despite only booking it a week before departure. The total price including all taxes was £49 - that's usually the starting point for just the taxes alone when departing from LHR! If I had wanted to redeem a business class reward on this short segment then the taxes/charges would have actually come to nearly £70. It clearly made sense to stick it out in Y, even though I had no Star Alliance status anymore and therefore at a risk of ending up in miserable queues at check-in etc.

This was a route served by Lufthansa Italia, whose operations began earlier this year in February. Given the utter direness of Alitalia, it's hardly surprising that Lufthansa saw an opportunity in the Italian market with some good ol' German efficiency. Last I heard, they were doing pretty well despite being very early days of operation whereas Alitalia seemed to be - as usual - in a permanent state of near-bankruptcy with implacable labour relations and huge losses. Back to the subject at hand... so the flight on LH Italia was therefore an interesting "new" airline to try.

Checking in online exactly 24 hours prior to departure, I found no space in one of the Row 9 exit seats with extra legroom so I had to content myself with a seat in Row 5 which would at least let me disembark early and minimise any queueing. And I was given the option of a mobile boarding pass - this involved receiving a link by SMS or email, which I would then click and retrieve the square type barcode which could be scanned by everyone along the way. As I had never tried anything like it before, it was quite cool to see how it all works. Here is a photo:



My very first Mobile boarding pass!


As usual, I spent all night packing and tidying my room on the night before departure. I wonder whether I would ever get rid of the habit - it just seems easier to do it all in the middle of the night, rather than set aside time during the day which can be spent socialising with friends and so on. Besides, missing a morning flight has become one of my phobias thanks to a bad experience with an early Eurostar departure and I don't tend to trust myself to wake up early for something with such dire consequences if I don't. So, unless it's an evening departure, I just find it easier to not sleep! There will be plenty of time to sleep onboard the flights and at the lounges in any case.

Getting the bus from Feltham station, I arrived at Terminal 1 around 11:00am. Along the way on the bus, I passed by the large scale model of the Emirates A380 which has long replaced the BA Concorde that used to occupy the same spot. Quite frankly, I'm not a fan - whereas the Concorde was slender, elegant and represented air travel at its most glamorous, the A380 is fat, ugly and 400 Y passengers crowd it out on the lower deck. Hardly representative of any notion of the "romance of travel".



The offending A380 model


Lufthansa moved its operation from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 back in June and I can confidently say that it is a huge improvement over the previous arrangements. With a dedicated area in Zone K (previously Zone R in the BA days) and a dedicated security lane, as well as spacious areas for check-in and bag drops, the departure experience no longer resembles an exodus from a dilapidated third world airport. They seemed to force everyone travelling in Y to use the self-service check-in machines but since I already had a mobile boarding pass, I proceeded straight to the bag-drop where my bags were taken care of by a friendly agent.



Zone K used by Lufthansa-aligned airlines as well as TAP Portugal



Y pax being asked to use the self check-in machine before proceeding to the bag drops



Thankfully, no queues at the bag drop. I would imagine that it could get quite busy during peak hours



The First Class / Star Gold check-in area with its dedicated priority lane to security


Once I proceeded to the (non-Fast Track) security I was relieved to find almost no-one in the queue, which put me in a good mood despite being a "laptops out, belts off, shoes off" slog at the x-ray. After I had reassembled myself and my belongings, I went to Pret to grab something to eat and drink and sat down to phone BMI to make the reservation for my return flight. Those of you familiar with the pain of dealing with the ICC would be amazed to hear that I managed to book, pay and even reserve my seats without any problems, all within 15 minutes! It was definitely a new record for me. The itinerary for the return flight would be ICN-HKG-BKK-OSL on TG, then OSL-LHR on SK. And yes, I'll be writing a trip report for those too



Departure information display - I really like the quality of the flat screen displays