Swiss First Class A340-300... is it that good?

Flight: LX284

Route: ZRH-JNB

Aircraft: A340-300

Flight Date: 01.02.2022

Flight Time: 09h 57min

Class: First

In today’s review I’ll have a closer look at the Swiss First Class, an experience, definitely worth every penny in my case. Even though flying the slightly narrower First Class on board the A340-300 by Swiss. So, let’s dive in, in an eventful flight from Zürich to Johannesburg, some 10h of pure enjoyment.

Boarding in the E-Gates means, that you get a shuttle service from the lounge directly to the terminal, not to your gate, anyways I wasn’t too impressed by this

service, but we’ll have a closer look at that, when reviewing the First Class Lounge in Zürich. Coming on board, you’re forced to wait in the jetway, as boarding is only with one jetway, all the economy guests where with you in the jetway as well, blocking it. This comes as it is not possible to board first, when flying First Class, as there is just one shuttle bus per flight. That bus only departs when every First Class guest arrives at the meeting point for the bus. Finally made it to the plane’s door, I was greeted by a friendly flight attendant and directed towards the front of the cabin; my seat was 2A today. When I arrived at the seat, I didn’t feel too comfortable, as it seemed that the flight attendants were struggling to serve every guest appropriately. I just felt a little forgotten as the flight attendant first served seat 1A and not me even though I was first on board. Therefore, I helped myself with settling down which caused a little chaos because no one knew what kind of service was already done for which guest.

Anyways settled down, I went to my travel companion on seat 1A, where we were served the famous Laurent Perrier Grand Siècle champagne, accompanied by a nice amuse bouche. While enjoying the welcome drink, we were served the menu card and they also came by with the slippers and pyjama. By the time passing, the crew also got a good way of communicating with those weird avegeeks being us, which made the atmosphere more and more relaxing.

After having finished the drink, I thought it’s time to check out my seat, the cabin layout is in a classic 1-2-1 config, with a total of 8 seats in the whole cabin. The seats are extremely wide and facing straight forward with a big screen in front. As well, the seats are fitted with sliding doors for extra privacy, which is verry much appreciated when willing to sleep, in my opinion. The seat also offers a massage function, which I didn’t like at all and ironically, I struggled turning it off. Also, there is a big wooden armrest where drinks can be placed on, as well, this is where the table is stowed. In terms of storage, the seat offers plenty of options. Beside you get a full overhead compartment for yourself, you can place things in the ottoman right under the video screen, as well you can place things like your shoes under it. There is also a big storage compartment in the armrest as well, there is a magazine holder next to your legs, that comes also handy to place your phone in when sleeping. There is a power outlet and of course noise cancelling headphones are provided as well, but I didn’t try them out to tell you more about.

Right after takeoff, the cabin crew came by and introduced herself and handing out the WIFI voucher that includes 50mb, which is quite a low amount of data in my opinion. But this didn’t matter at all as the antenna didn’t work anyways on that flight. WIFI prices at Swiss are pretty high, I think they’re even scam, as you can pay 39CHF for only 120mb which is way too much comparing it to the concurrence.

After that, service started, as this is a late evening departure, most passengers went to sleep soon after departure, but not us, we enjoyed a full dinner, ordering nearly everything the menu card offers. One advantage of the seat is, that the ottoman can also be used as an extra seat, so when travelling as a couple or as I did, with friends, you can enjoy the meal together even though having a window seat, where you don’t have two seats next to each other as in the middle seats. Dinner started off with the famous balik salmon, continued with a meat platter, salad, and a soup, before we headed to the main course, for me this was a filet, prepared at its best. This was definitely the highlight in terms of on point cooking. After the cheese platter with some nice port, we continued with the highlight of taste, the desert! To finish, the praline by Sprüngli is just a must, and a nice finish to a 4h meal, before heading to bed.

The bed is of course made by the crew when heading to the bathroom to change to the extremely comfortable pajama. Talking of toilet, the toilet doesn’t offer too many amenities, which it also doesn’t need to, as everything is in the amenity kit provided by Bally. Bally is one of my favorite brands, so this amenity kit has verry special status for me personally.

Let’s have a look at the amenity kit, it holds some nice amenities, that are quite useful in my opinion. There is also a special Kit for women, but as I’m a man, I of course got the one for men. It has a package with socks and an eye mask, as well, you’re offered a comb, dental kit and a shoehorn, earplugs and a tissue are also provided. In terms of cosmetics article, you get products from la prairie which includes a skin cream, eye cream, lip balm and a hand cream. The products felt quite good to use, but I’ve to admit, I haven’t tried every product as I prefer to keep the amenity kit in its original packaging. At last, there is also a package of Ricola in the kit which gives it a verry swiss impression, I like it, that Swiss really tries to represent its country in its whole product, the hard and soft product.

When returning from the toilet, the bed was made, it was extremely good, with the extra mattress on top of the seat, the bedding was just perfect. Also, an added comfort was provided by the real duvet used, rather than just a normal blanked used in Business.

Just prior to landing, breakfast service started with a huge option of food which is extremely unusual for an airplane breakfast. Mostly you can only get some scrambled egg or so, but here the offer was quite extensive. I ordered myself some “bircher müsli” and a fruit plate, accompanied by bread. Soon after having finished it, the flight attendant came by and asked if I’d like some hot food as well and offered lots of options, I went for the pouched eggs with polenta and sauce hollandaise (I assume) which was one of the best breakfasts I ever had. The menu was of course customizable, I mentioned that I don’t like polenta that much, and immediately got offered the same dish without the polenta or with an alternative, but I went for polenta anyways and was positively surprised.

And now, let’s talk about the crew in more detail. I’ve to say they were just amazing, one of the best crews I’ve seen on an airplane so far! The only thing I didn’t like at all, was the beginning where it was chaotic and, in my opinion, they were kind of rude to us at first. I assume they didn’t know how to talk to us, as we didn’t fit the usual clients, but from a First Class I expect the crew to be able to adapt that fast to the clients that they never feel in the wrong place, this wasn’t the case that time. But as soon as we talked with them, they opened up and it was just a relaxing atmosphere in the whole aircraft, all in all we just had a good time all together. When deboarding was completed, the crew also said, they did never get that many compliments from passengers after a flight, so we were pretty lucky that day!

To conclude this amazing experience… I’d say that it was simply amazing and I’m looking forward to my next flight in Swiss First as soon as possible, but as the tickets flying out of Switzerland are pretty high, it is always quite difficult to get some nice deals