Review of SWISS flight from Zurich to Palma De Mallorca in Economy

INTRO & CHECK-IN

Good morning from Zurich Airport! Today I’ll be taking SWISS’ inaugural A350-900 flight in their Economy cabin. I arrived in from Copenhagen the evening before and spent the night at the airport hotel before checking in for my flight to Palma de Mallorca.

 I got to the airport nice and early to try and secure an upgrade, however, all the Business class cabin was fully booked. 

After a seamless check in process, I headed through security, which had a separate priority line for First/Business and *Gold passengers.

 I wanted to check out the SWISS lounge however it only opened at 5:30am. Maybe next time! 

BOARDING

The scheduled departure time is 6:30am with boarding scheduled to begin 35 minutes before. I was told that there would be festivities at the gate beginning 5:25am, which is also why I didn't wait for the lounge to open. 

Here's a peek at the aircraft taking us to Mallorca this morning!

Unfortunately, there was nothing special at the gate except from a speech over the intercom introducing the A350 and SWISS Senses. This was actually quite underwhelming when you compare it to what Edelweiss had done for their own A350 inaugural.

Before boarding we were handed out some chocolates from Sprungli as a token for the inaugural flight.

I was able to board in group 2 (due to my Star Alliance Gold status). Boarding began a few minutes behind schedule with a lot of excited passengers surrounding the boarding area eager to board.

Today’s aircraft is HB-IFA, a newly delivered Airbus A350-900XWB, and the first in SWISS’ fleet. 

All passengers boarded through door L2, which is why I was not able to have a peek at the new First Class cabin upon boarding. During deplaning passengers were allowed to visit the forward cabins and cockpit (more photos at the end of the review!)


The cabin is fitted in a premium heavy 4 class layout, with 4 First Class seats, 45 Business seats, 38 Premium Economy seats in a 2-3-2 configuration and 156 Economy seats in a 3-3-3 configuration. 

The Business class cabin has a unique layout with 7 different categories of seats. Some with more privacy or legroom.

The first row of both Business class cabins have a suite which passengers can pay a significant additional charge to upgrade to. 

Extra legroom seat:

Here's a look at the premium Economy cabin

I headed down the aisle to my seat 29K, which is a window seat in the singular economy cabin. 

 I managed to take a lot of photos before the cabin filled up, especially since it was a fully booked flight. A lot of non-avgeeks too!

I settled down in the seat 29K, which for this short route did not come with any amenities like headphones/blanket etc. 

The seat itself is quite spacious with a decent amount of legroom.  The seat features a massive 13” HD IFE screen. 

Our pushback was delayed by 10-15 minutes due to congestion at Mallorca airport. 

In the meanwhile, the crew played SWISS’ new safety video.

We finally pushed back around 25 minutes behind schedule. 

After a 5-7 minute taxi to the gate and a long hold on the runway, we were off!

CRUISE

I love the external cameras that SWISS have installed, 5 different angles! 

View

Let’s go through some of the seat features. 

Cup holder

Reading materials

USB & USB-C ports

The crew passed around the cabin with water bottles and offered tea of coffee at an additional charge.

Sunrise

New IFE interface. Passengers can now connect their phones to use as a remote control and connect their personal bluetooth earphones. 

Cruising at 43000 ft

SWISS’ A350 are flying around Europe for a few weeks for crew familiarization before they start Transcontinental flights to Boston next month. 

I had preordered a meal a few days prior to the flight but was not served it, something which many passengers faced. I tried to ring the call bell after service was completed but no crew came even after waiting 10 minutes. I walked to the galley to ask for it, and they apologized and handed me the meal.

I ordered a cold cuts platter and a chicken sandwich, but didn't have time to eat it as we already begun our descent into Palma de Mallorca

Here's a look at the recline 

Started our descent into PMI

ARRIVAL & CABIN TOUR

Welcome to PMI! Unfortunately, no water canon salute on arrival (or departure for that matter) which a lot of us expected! Nonetheless a great flight!

Let's take a look at the rest of the cabin

Some more photos of the Business class cabin

This is the first class cabin, layed out in a 1-2-1 configuration.

The entire cabin is layed out identical to Lufthansa's Allegris A350

The middle seat (not pictured here) are much wider and can seat 2 passengers. 

The Wanderlust livery on this aircraft was designed by Swiss artists to be a "flying gallery" showcasing Switzerland's diversity.

Thanks for following along! Click the link at the top to watch the full video on YouTube!