Avis du vol entre Athens et Zurich en classe Affaires avec SWISS

Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Athens-Eleftherios Venizelos Airport (ATH) to Zürich-Kloten Airport (ZRH), which I took on 1 October 2024 on my way to a family trip in China.

Unfortunately, since this trip was with my family, I did not take many pictures of the flight.

BACKGROUND

During much of October 2024, me and my family (my parents, my siblings, and myself) went on a three week trip to China, visiting Hong Kong (2-7.10.2024), Beijing (7-13.10.2024), Xi'an (13-14.10.2024), and the Guilin area (14-18.10.2024) (the Guilin portion of the trip included an night in Guilin city proper (14-15.10.2024), and visits to Ping'an Village (15-16.10.2024) and Yangshuo (16-18.10.2024)). Although we originally planned to fly from Israel immediately to China (TLV-ZRH-HKG), and back from China immediately to Israel (HKG-MUC-TLV), we had to change our flight plans due to the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East which happened around the same time, resulting in us extending our trip to include stops in Athens (30.9-1.10.2024) and Larnaca (19.10.2024).

This was not only my first time ever in Hong Kong and China, but my first time anywhere east of Tbilisi. The trip was overall very enjoyable, though I did find the increased surveillance and police presence in Mainland China bothersome: I had to carry my passport with me, instead of leaving it at a safe in my hotel room like I'm used to do in the west (and like I indeed did in Hong Kong).

Internet censorship in Mainland China was less of a problem than I feared: my mobile data package gave me uncensored internet access, while as for Wi-Fi networks, I installed a VPN on my devices in advance. The VPN worked well overall, only having some hiccups in the afternoon.

The final flight itinerary for the trip was:

The itinerary also included high-speed trains G307 (Beijing → Xi'an) and G319 (Guilin → Hong Kong).

ATHENS-ELEFTHERIOS VENIZELOS AIRPORT

Because of an unfortunately-located neon light, I had a hard night sleeping at the hotel in Athens. I only went to sleep at around 2, and woke up at 7:30. We started our morning doing a guided walking tour of the Acropolis, and returned to the hotel at 13 in the afternoon, where the airport shuttle van was there to pick us up. The driver was very friendly and even gave us ham-and-cheese sandwiches (which were very delicious) when I expressed my anxiety about not having lunch.

Venizelos Airport was laied out very efficiently. From the check-in area, it was just a left turn to security, and past it we're in the terminal proper. However, to my disappointment at the time, we were quickly shuffled off to the Lufthansa lounge at my dad's insistence. 

THE LUFTHANSA LOUNGE

The Lufthansa lounge in Venizelos airport is a small room, with all the expected lounge amenities: seating, workstations, and a bar and buffet. While I understand that the Lufthansa group would rather keep things "in-house", at the very least its passengers should be given the option of accessing the lounges of fellow Star Alliance airline Aegean (which, given that ATH is its major hub, would presumably be much more impressive).

In the lounge itself, I had a rather late lunch. The food selection was limited, especially in the hot meals, but the potato gratin and beef soup were excellent.

THE FLIGHT ITSELF

Aircraft information:
HB-IOH "Wengen"
Airbus A321-111
Delivered new to Swissair 21 March 1997 and inherited by Swiss after Swissair's collapse in 2002; 27 years and 7 months old at the time of the flight.

This was my first (and as of the initial writing of this report, the only) time flying on that plane.

After an hour and a half in the lounge, it was time for us to head back to the terminal proper; after half an hour's wait, we made it to the plane at around 16:40.

In the annoyingly-persistent European short-haul tradition, Business class does not use dedicated seats, only economy-class seats with the middle seat left vacant and unbookable. The seats were the usual economy class fare when it comes to their dimensions, which meant i fit in them easily. Though the seats felt cheap, they did not really feel uncomfortable, perhaps due to the plane's advanced age. However, they lacked amenities such as charging plugs and device holders.

There was no personal in-flight entertainment, though there was an old-fashioned system of retractable screens in the overhead compartment, which showed not only the flight map but even some cartoons on a loop! However, since the seats did not have an audio plug, this was more of a distraction than a help, as I opted to watching the assorted few HaPijamot episodes I had saved to my iPad in any case.

This sort of hard product is barely adequate on most intra-european flights (which are one- to two-hour hops), and completely unacceptable on flights of three or more hours.

Unfortunately, this state of affairs - no distinct business class and no in-flight entertainment - is very common across many European airlines. While this is understandable in low-cost carriers, the fact that full-service airlines (such as Lufthansa, SWISS, and SAS) do so as well is a travesty, and even a few steps shy of scamming their own customers. The short-haul fleets of full-service airlines should, as a bare minimum, have a fully-fledged bring-your-own-screen IFE system (where you connect your smartphone or tablet to an internal Wi-Fi network without internet connection, and use it as the IFE system's screen), and larger recliners in Business class.

Dinner was served around an hour after takeoff. I did not take any picture of the menu, and could only reconstruct the name of the main course I was served from online sources.

My meal consisted of:
- for first course: bread and butter as well as lentils;
- for main course:  Beef Rissoles, shallots and red wine sauce (alongside carrots and mashed potatoes, which were not indicated on the menu);
- for dessert: a swiss cheese platter and a small cake with berries and a pair of merangues.

The meal was quite delicious.

Ahead of landing, the crew gave each of us a chocolate as a gift.

The landing was uneventful: the plane was taxied to a remote stand, and it was raining outside, which made me worry that I had forgotten my retractable mini-umbrella at the hotel (in reality, I never took it to my trip in the first place, and it was left at home).

The information screens showed arrival information and a timetable for connecting flights, something which I found pretty useful. This is my second time encountering such a screen (the first was on board a Finnair Airbus A320), and my perception is that it is quite rare, though this is probably because I rarely fly on the A320 in the first place.