Swiss Business Short Flight Review I One Mile At A Time

What Swiss serves in business class on a 29-minute flight

Updated: April 16, 2020

Published: March 19, 2012

To keep things in perspective I think it’s always funny to compare business class on European or Asian airlines to their US counterparts. In this instance I’m not even talking about what they actually offer, but rather the number of times I’ve been on an hour-long flight in the US in first class, where the flight attendant announces that “due to the short duration of the flight there will be no service.”

Compare that to my 29-minute Swiss flight from Munich to Zurich, where they served the following in business class:

Yes, that’s pesto chicken, tomato and mozzarella, grilled zucchini, two hot rolls, and a dessert. Swiss intra-Europe catering beats Lufthansa by a long shot, given that I find Lufthansa intra-Europe catering to rarely be well executed.

So the tangential point here is to always choose Swiss over Lufthansa intra-Europe if you can. Their catering is substantially better, in my experience.

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Spunkyryan Guest

March 19, 2012, 7:36 pm

Business on Qantas in Australia is usually pretty good with catering on short hops such as Sydney to Canberra (a flight of around 300km or 186 miles). Even outside usual meal times there'll be something such as a salad with salmon or prosciutto and a small cake plus coffee or tea in the morning and wine after midday.

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Yes to service! Guest

March 19, 2012, 2:11 pm

American flight attendants and airlines are quite lazy by global standards. On a shorthaul, I'll take the food and service of LX over the large seat any day. For the equivalent of coast-to-coast US flights, 5+ hours, pretty much all European airlines have a proper lie-flat business class product; even the 4-hour LHR-DME flight (shorter than a mid-con) now has a longhaul product from BA.

NB Guest

March 19, 2012, 1:28 pm

Personally, I prefer the seats on LX, LH or BA intra-Europe Business Class to United's "First" class domestic service. I do recognise that the former are simply Economy seats but with the center seat vacant and the armrests pushed into it to make the window and aisle seats wider. However, I find the ergonomics of these seats far better than those on United, which give me a sore lower back. And, of course, there's no comparison on the service.

Demo Guest

March 19, 2012, 11:58 am

@Lantean - I couldn't agree more. Whats up with the economy seats?

sjs Guest

March 19, 2012, 11:21 am

@Lantean Couldn't have said it better myself. Even more pronounced on ~3+ hr flights, e.g. ZRH-DME.

What Swiss serves in business class on a 29-minute flight

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