Our Holidays

Business Seat 01D & 01F

The flight was due to leave at 14:45 and boarding started promptly at 14:20. However as 14:45 came and went and we were still sitting at gate A04 at Geneva International Airport, it was clear we were not going any where quickly.

The captain explained that they had a technical issue and as they did not know what the cause was he could not tell us how long it was going to take to sort it. This was not good news as we had booked a connecting flight to Bangkok (BKK) with Swiss and just had 2 hours to make that connection. Additionally we had a connecting flight from Bangkok to Singapore which while having a 6 hour layover was on a separate ticket. I was scared we would miss our connection and have all our plans fall like a house of cards before we had even left Switzerland.

Luck would have it that after 30 minutes of doing whatever they did they had found the issue and the captain confidently announced we would be leaving Geneva in 15 minutes.

So with just over 45 minutes delay we pushed back and joined the queue of small private jets and larger commercial aircraft waiting to leave Geneva on a Friday afternoon.

We took off on runway 23 and climbed out over Lake Geneva, heading over the French side of the lake before turning and following the line of the motorway to Fribourg and Bern. During the delay the cabin crew had been very good at keeping us all calm and people saw last connections home for the weekend being missed and getting caught up in strikes from certain pilots, etc.

The cabin service started and we were served with a small wrap and a pana cota with our choice of drink… Champagne for me please 😉

It was not long before we were circling and stating to approach Zurich Airport. However the captain did not sooth furrowed brows when he uttered the dreaded words “Air Traffic delays”. The delays were short lived and after a quick loop between Zurich and Basel, we continued our descent and arrived on runway 14 at ZRH.

We were then taxied to the furthers corner of the Zurich airfield which necessitated a bus back to the terminal before we could try to make it to our connecting flights. However arriving just under an hour late we still had time to make it, just no time to visit the much lauded new Swiss Lounge in the E-Dock.