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RUN FOR YOUR FLIGHT

I was travelling to Budapest from Geneva via Zurich last September and booked on business class with Swiss on all flights. My flight from Geneva was supposed to depart for Zurich at 11am so I went to check in at 930am. The staff picked up the phone and talked in French for about a minute; I understood it was about my flight as my name was mentioned. I asked if everything was fine and she did not respond. Later she said,“you have to run to the gate right now as the door is closing”. She added that since it was foggy at Zurich, they didn’t want me to miss my connecting flight to Budapest so put me on an earlier flight.

I ran to the gate and the staff there told me that I actually could elect to travel on my 11am flight but that since the 11am flight was full, I might not get a seat. No mention of fog at the gate. In addition, they gave me a boarding pass for economy, saying that business was full. I started feeling something was not right but decided I’d take the economy seat, thinking it was still better than insisting on waiting to board the 11am flight when I might not have a seat.

Onboard the flight (I was obviously the last one to board!), the overhead cabin was already full and a stewardess said she had to put my trolley at the very back. Knowing that it would be a struggle to get down to the back on landing against all passengers’ traffic to retrieve my trolley, I politely asked if she would bring the bag back to me on landing. She rudely refused, announcing loudly that she’s working “in the front” (ie business class).

I informed her that I was booked on business but her colleague had “bumped me down” to economy on this flight. Then her attitude changed slightly and she quietly took my bag to find a space in the overhead cabin in business.

On arrival at Zurich, the sky was blue and no sign of any “fog”. I know airlines sometimes overbook, but what I find disgusting is that they give all kinds of excuses to passengers, playing on the psychology that we business travellers don’t want to miss connecting flights. The attitude of Swiss’s stewardesses is also something the airline should seriously look into. If they are in the service industry, they should pay respect to all passengers, regardless of which class they’re travelling and especially when their requests are perfectly reasonable.

Swiss replies:

We regret to learn of the circumstances the passenger described and apologise for any inconvenience. The passenger’s flight was delayed due to airport restrictions in Geneva. Since Ms Kwan had a connecting flight to Budapest, it was likely that she would have missed her flight. Our agents in Geneva were well aware of the tight connection and to assist the passenger and avoid a misconnection, our agents offered the choice to travel on the earlier flight. Due to a lack of seat capacity in business, the passenger was offered, and accepted, a seat in economy. We are of course investigating a refund of the fare difference.

We also understand that the passenger received different information at check-in about the reason for requesting she boarded the earlier flight. We apologise for the miscommunication.

It is our main objective to make our passengers feel comfortable when travelling with us and we deeply regret the experience on this journey. We immediately passed on all feedback to the relevant departments and have contacted the passenger concerned to apologise directly for any inconvenience caused.