Home > Swiss > 2007 > Review

Taken 30 March 2007 from London, England (Heathrow Airport) - LHR to Miami, FL (Miami International Airport) - MIA

We flew from Heathrow to Miami return via Zurich. Our outbound flight to Zurich on and A321 was comfortable enough in economy, food was a little bland, but the cabin crew did a good enough job.

Our connecting flight which took us to Miami on an A330 was an hour late leaving. This wasn't a problem for the captain as he loaded on extra fuel and managed to get us into Miami excactly on time. Cabin service was OK and there was a good choice of entertainment on the TV. In general, I was quite happy with Swiss and told many others that Swiss are a good airline.

Our flight home was a different story...

On our flight from Miami to Zurich, we flew on an A330, which had been previously owned by Sabena and Lufthansa. The cabin crew's attitude was really bad. We were treated more like a hassle than customers. We felt like we were in a Russian Gulag in the sky. One flight attendant was very rude and aggressive. 90 minutes into our flight which left at 8:10pm, she stormed down the isle barking out to us "SHADES DOWN!!!". When I questioned this and said that I wanted to look out the window. (Looking out at the stars would have been a lot more entertaining than their inflight entertainment.) She raised her voice at me and told me that other passengers wanted to sleep and there was nothing to see anyway. There was still about 4 hours of darkness left... She also accused my partner of knocking a tub of butter onto the floor which she had just run over with her trolley. I had a can of beer thrust into my hand by a passing flight attendant who I had asked 10 minutes before for the beer. My previous experiences were that the flight attendants would pour the beer for you.

It was quite clear that the crew on this flight's main priority was to get us fed, shut us up and for them to be able to get behind their curtain and go to sleep as quickly as possible until 2 hours before we landed.

My partner and I were very tired and upset when we got off in Zurich.

We then flew back to Heathrow from Zurich on an A320. The flight crew on that flight were the opposite of those A******* on the Miami flight. We were greeted with smiles and warm attitudes. We were made to feel welcome and the purser was horrified when I told him about our previous flight and I have sent in a official complaint letter to Swiss about the MIA - ZUH crew. This flight wasn't a dream flight though, as we had to spend 80 minutes surrounded by the family from hell - 4 children who screamed and wound each other up for most of the flight and their parents who really didn't care. I would have told the parents what I thought of them in the baggage hall, but Swiss had our bags waiting on the carousel for us before we had gone through passport control. To sum Swiss up... I'm not going to let 1 bad flight crew put me off them, but I think I will stick to British, Virgin, or the Asian airlines for my long-haul flights in the future. I know I will be looked after by these airlines. I won't say I won't use swiss for European flights though. I just wish airlines would realise that we Economy passengers provide just as much income as passengers who's company pay for their business class tickets.

On their website, Swiss advertise that they give passengers smiles and Swiss chocolate. We didn't get chocolate on our return home and we didn't get any smiles or friendly cabin crew on our Miami - Zurich flight. Food served to us wasn't very good quality either, it wouldn't even fill a 10 year old child's appetite.