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Story and photography by Manos Angelakis
A330-300 image courtesy of SWISS
Switzerland has become associated with “hospitality” to such an extent that graduates of Swiss hotel and culinary schools are much in demand as managers of luxury hotels and restaurants around the world.
 It has not been surprising then that SWISS, Switzerland’s national airline, is one of the first international carriers to redesign their seating on their Airbus A330-300 aircraft, and implement, in First and Business Class, the “Bed Above the Clouds”, an extremely comfortable lie flat seat with adjustable cushions, lumbar support, a massage feature, iPod hookups, individual large seat-back TV screen, and many other amenities. Add excellent in-flight meals designed by award-winning chef Urs Gschwend, of Restaurant Aphrodite in Ascona, Ticino, nice wines from the Ticino region, and personalized attention of the flight attendants and you truly have a very comfortable overnight flight.
I took the flight from New York to Zurich and I have to admit that, what is normally a tiring experience, turned out to be actually enjoyable.
We started at the JFK gate with a ribbon-cutting ceremony to inaugurate the brand new A330-300 aircraft. SWISS personnel from the New York office as well as corporate managers from Zurich were at hand, including Harry Hohmeister, who was at the time Chief of Network and Distribution – a few days after the flight Mr. Hohmeister was named by the SWISS Board of Directors to succeed C. Franz as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. During the flight, I had the chance to speak for a short time with Mr. Hohmeister and I found him very cordial and with excellent understanding of the challenges and possible solutions required, for the company to weather the global economic crisis and regulatory challenges  on both sides of the Atlantic.
Business class is laid in a 2-2-1 seating configuration. On the flight into Zurich, I was seated in one of the double seats; on the return, I was in a single seat. Right after takeoff, my seatmate adjusted his seat to the flat position, covered himself with the blanket provided from head to toe, and went to sleep, waking up for neither dinner nor breakfast. I’m over 6 foot, 2 inches tall, and the 6 foot well that the bed flattens out to, was just a bit too short for me. So I decided to set up the seat in an elongated S configuration, and that was really comfortable. I used the lumbar support for my back. All the seat controls are easily accessible from a panel set on a very wide arm that can be also used as a desktop. The desktop covers the well that the person seated behind me uses to lie down in.
I’m not much of a TV watcher, nor do I play computer games; there are numerous channels and games that can be watched or played on the flat, touch sensitive screen. Some of the navigation information available, such as distance to destination, time at destination, temperature etc. is also displayed on the screen; you just have to program the screen to display it.
And, a much desired feature: real silverware and wine glasses with the meal service, not the plastic implements overcautious US bureaucrats have tried to impose on airlines serving the US.
Zurich’s airport has been reconfigured since my last trip there, and has a much improved traffic flow at both immigration and customs. On the return flight, we used the SWISS Business Class lounge in the duty free area. The general airport security was efficient and practically painless, even though a special section E was built specifically for US and Canadian transatlantic flights, with increased and intrusive security checks demanded by the Bush administration.
© May 2009 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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