Review of Helvetic Airways flight from Munich to Zurich in Economy

Hello everyone, it has been a long time since my last flight in 2019 due to the Covid19 situation. I did not fly at all in 2020, and this year I decided to visit my second home in Hong Kong. There wasn't so much flights to choose from. Swiss International Airlines would be our best option considering the short connecting time and the duration of flights.

We booked the ticket in the beginning of April, and we already prepared that changes could be happened to our flights. As expected, towards the end of the month, we received the notification that our first leg from Munich to Zürich was changed and the connecting was simply too short and not realistic. We called the Lufthansa hotline and successfully rebooked the flight to 2nd June with Cathay Pacific Airways and transit through Frankfurt airport. However, on 18th May, we received another notification that the Cathay Pacific Airways flight was cancelled. So we rebooked again our flight to 3rd June, with Swiss International Airlines. Luckily there were no more changes happened until our departure. 

I was quite happy with this itinerary, because I would have the chance to try out the new ERJ-900E2 and also the A220-300. This will be the highlight of this trip. 

On the day of flight, we arrived at Munich airport at 7:15am. There were not so many people and we were directed to the check-in counter in no time. We performed the online check-in the day before, but the boarding card could not be issued and must be collected at the counters.

After we finished the process, we headed immediately to airside.

Lufthansa CityLine CRJ-900, D-ACKF was parked at gate. It will operate the flight to Copenhagen as LH2441 at 10:40am.

Soon, another Lufthansa CityLine CRJ900, D-ACNU came into sight. It arrived from Frankfurt as LH94.

After I finished my bread, I went to toilet. Then I realized that my gate should be G41 instead of G47. 

This flight was also codeshared with Lufthansa and Singapore airlines.

At the gate, an Lufthansa A319 was parked there. For sure this was not my plane to Zürich. In the far end behind the satellite terminal, I could spot a Helvetic Airways plane and I was pretty sure that this would be my ride to Zürich. 

This A319 had just arrived from Cairo in the early morning as LH587.

Boarding was commenced at 9:25am. The boarding procedure was divided into group 1 to 5. We were in group 3. First, boarding was called for group 1 and 2. Then followed by 3 to 5. However, priority boarding did not mean anything, because at the end all passengers just packed in the same bus. Once I got off the bus, I instantly noticed the big Pratt & Whitney PW1900G engine. Here was our plane, HB-AZC, the third E190E2 delivered to Helvetic Airways in February 2020.

View of the plane before entering the aircraft. Standing at the door we can spot the difference between E190E1, the gull wing shape design which enables a bigger engine to be mounted on the wing.

The Seat is in 2-2 configuration and there are a total of 110 seats.

My seat 28A

Back of the seat. There is no PTV nor overhead screen. The reading materials include the safety card, a catering menu and also a Covid19 hint.

Legroom was okay.

There were 4 USB port under the seat in the front.

Overhead PSU,

View out of the aircraft. 

Cabin during boarding. The indication of the seatbelt sign was not available on every row, and not easy to see indeed.

Pushback was started at 10:00am

Taxing to runway 08L.

A Turkish Airlines A321neo, TC-LTA was ahead of us. They were flying to Istanbul as TK1630. 

Eventually, we took off at 10:19am.

Shortly after takeoff, we turned 180° and headed towards the direction of Zürich.

We had a very good overview of Munich airport. Another design feature of the E190E2 is that the wing is 6.4m wider than the original E195 and adopts a raked wingtip instead of winglets, which provides more efficiency and less noisy.

As the seatbelt sign went off, the cabin crew immediately started the service. I took the chance to visit the lavatory at the rear of the aircraft.

Toilet was very clean. There was only one lavatory at the back of the plane, which I think it's alright for regional jet with such a short flight time. At least it was more spacious than the A320neo.

The cabin control panel at the back.

I got a bottle of water and the Swiss chocolate as I returned to my seat. It was really disappointed that the airlines terminated the complimentary beverage service.

We started our descend as we were flying over Bodensee.

Seconds before touchdown.

At 10:53 am we landed on RWY14. Total flight time was 35 minutes.

After a short taxi, we reached our parking gate at A05.

Last view of the aircraft.

Thanks for reading!