Swiss International Air Lines review by RE 2014-08-16

Swiss is without a doubt the worst airline on which I have had the displeasure of flying. We paid for three seats in Business Class, and I can't believe I didn't fly my usual choice, To start,Swiss show a picture of a throne-like seat on their website...and represent that as their Business Class seat. But there are just a few of these in the cabin, and the other seats are different. And YOU can't get the seats they show on the web site....only their senior frequent flyers. So my wife and baby were stuck in a middle seat, with an unfortunate stranger next to them, despite me having reserved the lone window seat online. The seats themselves are lumpy and uncomfortable, and the in-flight entertainment is the worst I've ever seen. It is painfully slow, clunky, and simply doesn't work much of the time (we took two longhaul legs, Zurich to Singapore and Hong Kong to Zurich and this was true on both legs). The food is ok, though not a PATCH on what you'd get on Emirates, Qatar, or one of the first-tier airlines. Swiss have no lounges of their own outside of Switzerland, so in Hong Kong we ended up being sent to a packed, noisy pay-per-entry lounge, which had no seats, was utter chaos, and had one type of beer in the fridge, Skol (you can't make this up). The worst insults were yet to come. When we disembarked in Zurich, and were told with no apology at all that we'd miss our connection to Manchester because Swiss were late arriving...my wife left her bag on the plane accidentally in our rush to get off. FIVE MINUTES later we told a Swiss ground employee that the bag had been left in Business Class, and would they mind retrieving it. Nope. They passed me a card for a third party lost and found company called Swissport, and was told to file a web report with them when I was back in the UK. Naturally, Swissport refuse to speak live, and send you an email from a no-reply email address. Two days later and still no info on what should have been the easiest thing in the world to solve....ask the gate agent to pop back onto the plane and retrieve the bag. The employees at Swiss must not be paid, as they are the least friendly and least helpful people I have dealt with in many, many years. In short, I wouldn't fly Swiss again if they paid me. I fly Business or First several times a year, and they have lost me, and anyone I know, forever. I can see why their predecessor went out of business (and were on the top ten most dangerous airline list at the time). This new abomination of an airline sprung up to take over for the old, bankrupt Swiss Air.....and in my view, it is WORSE. Avoid at all cost.