Continued
Since the last descriptive post exactly a month ago, I have done:
GVA-LHR-IAH - Upgraded to 1st by BA on the way over due to overbooking in business. I had not flown in BA First before. The surprise is the cabin walls, decorated to look like you are in a train, I think. When the shades are down and the blue lights on, it is really nice. I like the way you are walked from the door to your seat.
Flew Club World back from Houston. Both flights had new higher-definition video screens and a new moving map that is almost impossible to navigate.
GVA-LHR-DAL: Club World on the way over, with low-res screens on a 747. My particularly right-sloping table made a wine glass fall off by gravity and break on the carpet. Flew back on an AA 777-200 which has the older business class seats with a slight slope. I found them very hard, but slept OK. We left Dallas three hours late due to major thunderstorms, so missed my connection and had 3 hours to wait in LHR. Food continues to be great in the Gold lounge.
GVA-ZRH-SFO on the usual 340-300 that takes 12 hours. You save about 45 minutes on that with a 777 or 747. Swiss is not putting in new seats or video on the 340s, waiting until they are replaced by 777s in, I think, 2015. The good news is that there is no longer a security control in Zurich when you come back from the USA. If only that could happen in LHR. I understand it is difficult to determine who has come from which arriving flight. The Zurich solution in terminal E is to get arriving US passengers to go back up onto the boarding level, then take the train back to A/B.
Anyway, the low-res video on the 340s is irritating, so I did not watch any video, preferring my HP ElitePad. It is also irritating that the advertising they run now prevents access to the forward-facing video cameras to look at the take-off. The advertising ends several minutes after take-off. On landing, you no longer control the video and they sometimes remember to turn on the front camera. Also generally annoying that Swiss continues to tell you not to turn on your phone on landing, while BA has joined the various American airlines in alowing it.
Anyway, back to SFO via ZRH on Monday, returning via MUC.