View Full Version : Swiss - New Business Class
I'm booked on Swiss from Zürich to L.A. this coming November, thankfully in business class. I hear the new business seat is being installed on the A340 fleet during the second half of the year. Will I be able to find out which cabin configuration is being used before I fly?
I do have a reserved seat but on checking it (albeit via the Lufthansa website) it seems rather confusing. It indicates 6-across seating (i.e. old config) but some rows (6,7 & 9) only show 4 or 5 seats. Seatguru shows 6-across in every row throughout the cabin. It's not that the missing seats are taken - these are indicated separately. Could the missing seats be held back for crew rest?
I'd be grateful for any advice from anyone in the know as I like the sound of the single window seats in the new configuration.
Quite tricky to work this out as I can't see any introduction schedule on the Swiss site. However, all of the "old" seat layouts have 6 across in all rows. The new layout is offset as shown in this link and no rows have 6 seats. So, what you have found via LH seems to be neither layout. I am off to SFO with Swiss next week and my seat number exists in both configurations. I assume they have not actually started changing the fleet.
A340-300 New Business Class (http://www.swiss.com/web/FR/about_swiss/company/fleet/aircraft/Pages/airbus_a340_new.aspx)
Just checked in for my flight to SFO tomorrow. Yes, it is an A340 with the new seat layout. I hope it will be the same for the flight back on Thursday.
So I went to SFO last week, with a free upgrade to First outbound and in the new business class seats on the way back. The flight was full in both directions. Only business has been changed in the latest 340s, withe new new First only available on the 330-300s. Only two of the 15 340s have been modified so far, according to one crew. They are trying to fly 100% of the SFO flights with the new layout if they can.
The new business seats are very nice indeed. However, there are loads of adjustments possible, and they turn out to make it more difficult to get comfortable lying down. I suppose the existence of "harder" and "softer" cushion adjustments as well as the four-direction lower-back adjuster and the massage button makes expectations go up. In the end I found myself adjusting the seat to about a 10% incline, I suppose closer to what I am used to on LH and LX. The width and comfort are much better than BA Club World and a little better than on LH. The multimedia system is very good, with a good screen size. Food and wines roughly equivalent to BA and LH. I have no other business class comparison in the last year. I would rate BA least comfortable of the three.
dubh12000
10th Aug 2010, 06:50
Yeah, the SFO one is in the "San Fran" livery. It has done a few Bostons also I think. The other 340 is doing the Bangkok as far as I know.
I was on the painted one on the way over and the plain one on the way back.
acchaladka
15th Aug 2010, 12:27
You might send an email through their website, I find Swiss Air Lines in general are very responsive.
Whatever you do, avoid the ZRH-YUL (Montreal) route as it's their oldest cabin in both business and economy, and last time I flew the seat tray table was broken and movies just didn't work. I quite liked the staff though.
acchaladka
15th Aug 2010, 12:29
PS. Looking at the Lufthansa site for a flight operated by Swiss? My thought would also be to check the swiss.com site before going further.