"Meal service included this bottle of water. The end." Hilarious!

Totally normal Lufthansa Group Experience. That’s why i avoid the entire group like the plague! Turkish Airlines serves hot meals even on 2 hours flights. You could have flown them from Cairo to Zurich via Istanbul and you would have got a total of 2 meals.

Flown the Air France A350 last March from Paris to Cairo. This flight is considered a long haul flight with a full meal service, towel, headphones and all other amenities you can expect of a long haul flight. Really surprised that Swiss offers a service this poor

Super disappointing. I just flew Korean Air from ICN to PVG, which is a 90-min flight, and got a full lunch with various beverages (non- and alcoholic too). European air carriers are just embarrassing at this point

Absolutely agree. Swiss has fallen in standard and I actually wouldnt mind flying easyjet from Zurich as there isnt much difference left between Swiss and other low-cost carriers.

I absolutely get your point. In regards of the food availability: All Lufthansa Group Airlines organize their buy on Board service via a company called Retail in Motion. And it seems that they are just incapable of delivering enough products on board. It´s the same for Lufthansa and Eurowings (Austrian is not so relying on it).

16 CHF for that ? 😭😭😭 in the mean time Thai, Bangkok Airways… serves a full meal for a 50 min flight between BKK and PNH 😭😭😭

Because of the lack of service and in their a220 and a320 fleet tight legroom I don't see a point flying them, even as a Swiss inhabitant. I can fly easyjet, vueling and other for a much cheaper price with same legroom and cheaper additional bag. For example Zurich Malaga and return with Swiss is often 400 Swiss francs with vueling direct flights are often 150 both without checked bag. Why would I still fly Swiss? Also on routes to Asia I rather fly Singapore airlines or other Asian carriers for better prices with better service and cabin.

"Meal service included this bottle of water. The end." The way I laughed and then quickly sobered up

Zurich to Cairo like Frankfurt to Cairo or to the Canary Islands is usually served by shorthaul planes like the Airbus A320 with European Style Business and Economy Class without IFE, that is Lufthansa group standard. And in a shorthaul plane you get shorthaul service according to Lufthansa logic. So passengers could feel extremely happy that they at least got longhaul seat comfort and even First class and real business class seats on your flight 😂😂😂😂.

My shortest flight 38 minutes it’s been served bottle of water and juice, 1 hour flight have snack service with Saudia in economy 3 hour flight of Swiss like flying with LCC, it’s like no specific service for mid haul flights just short and long haul service

That level of service is really surprising, almost shocking really. European full service airlines need to understand that they must provide a nicer offering instead of trying to cut cost to compete with budget juggernauts like Wizz and easyjet. Give people more of a reason to choose them. I live in Asia and the full service carriers here absolutely deliver on that. I can always count on getting some hot refreshments and a full beverage service even on 90min flights. Europeans deliver on comfort, but that needs to extend to catering too. However, i’m still compelled to try SWISS because other reviews rate them admirably.

I had a similar experience on a BA flight between Istanbul and London. 4 hours and all they offered was a bottle of water and a little thing of cookies. As a US based flyer, I was shocked by the lack of options on such a long flight and it's given me such a bad impression of BA.

Even low cost airlines in the US like Southwest and JetBlue offer snack and drink service on hour-long flights. Swiss really needs to step up

Flew between Phuket and Bangkok on Bangkok Airways, 65 min flight. Warm meal, drinks and free lounge access. Economy class. But then again its Asia.

Took Swiss from ORD - ZRH, economy meal service for the pre landing meal was a orange juice container (the same type I saw served with public school breakfasts) and yogurt.

I cant wait for the Condor business class video :D

I would say this flight is ok-ish considering my British Airways flight from London to Cairo last Christmas. BA's flight is longer (4 hour plus) while passengers are still stuck to the european-configured plane - most seats have not very good legroom and do not recline just like a low cost carrier. Sure BA offers cold sandwich and drinks but I would happily trade food for a better seat.

I had a short KLM Citihopper flight from Cork to Amsterdam. Although not a complete meal, we did receive a can of soft drink or wine of choice and a sandwich. Then coffee or tea. But if you wanted more you could just ask and the KLM flight attendants would just give it. But you had to ask quickly, because the flight attendants were already busy cleaning up everything and preparing for landing.

Well, a 3hr flight = short-haul = no service on most LHG airlines. I guess the widebody A330 gives the feeling that one should expect long-haul service. Swiss has waaaay longer short-haul routes, on narrowbody aircraft, within Europe, that also don't get any complementary service. EG; ZRH-LPA that is blocked at almost 4.5hrs on an A320. Do I agree with this? No - they position themselves as a "premium" carrier, but they have been far from that because all of the cost-cutting and service reductions that have been going on. Nothing but a complimentary bottle of water and chocolate on a flight of this length is just pathetic and very NON PREMIUM. In the meantime I got full barservice and a decent snack on a 45minute flight from DOH to DXB in economy. Lol

Very curious about the next videos coming up 🙏🏼

I live in Zürich and have flown Swiss a bunch over the last 17 years. The quality of care they put into their service even for economy used to be very good. But the last four years have been scandalous with nickle and diming (extra quality of service tiers), diminished quality of service for the given tiers, outsourced customer support, etc. Swiss International Airlines is not worthy of having the word "Swiss" in their name anymore - eine Schande. Straight Lufthansaifizierung. And I don't say that because any of their fleet is dated.

I like your videos because they are always straight to the point

Love when videos are almost uploaded consecutively .. :D

i think the Thompson Vantage Seats and the Recaros look amazing and super retro, which is lovely.

Thanks for another great trip report David. The interior of the A330 looks very good. The catering options however leave a lot to be desired!

Great video as always!

Love your videos man, what do you use to edit videos?

Really nice videos on this channel. Looking forward to your future vedios.

I would love if you could try Malaysia Airline’s new economy and business product coming this November!

Swiss Air hasn't been "what it used to be" for some time now. I decided to avoid them already at end 2019 because they were a 'pauper airline' 'sorry for the delay' already even then.

hope your going to try Emirates new A350 when it enters service later this year.

i used to religiously watch simply aviation videos like 8 years ago when i was in middle school, now i'm in university and i'm back to watching again kkkkkkk

I mean it’s a Swiss service, you’d expect there to be some holes

I love the narration ❤😊 It makes it much easier to focus on the footage instead of the subtitles

I flew this route regularly for three years. I would still pick Swiss when possible. I tried Austrian and LOT, but choose Swiss as it was reliably on time (rare thing in Cairo). Egyptair flies to Geneva but - ‘Egyptair, when you have time to spare.’ Also they very rarely used an a330. Almost always an a320/21

Interesting they don’t offer free catering. Air France offers catering on a 3.5 hr flight to Beirut, so ig AF is the better option?

Great video once again! Would like to see you make many more flight reports about routes between cairo and other destinations because i get the feeling that these flights get treated in another way than routes to other places

That happened to me in a flight from Amsterdam to Madrid on Iberia Express. I was at the middle of the plane and they had ran out of everything, not even water.

I flew VIE-IST last on Turkish last April, a flight that was under 2 hours (shorter than this one), and received a full meal, so it is really surprising that LX provides such miserable catering.

Very nice and interesting tripreport video 😮✈️

I think it depends on the route! A more demanding route from the west coast to Zurich is better equipped

For a three hr flight you expect food unless it’s a budget airline,you get a full service from Auckland to Sydney and other cities in Australia which is around 3 hrs even air no is going back to full service across the Tasman people expect it

Thats wild! Not even some complementary pretzels???

The flights from ZRH to TLV includes light meal

I remember flying Swissair (way before it went Tango Uniform) many times in the 1960s on the Convair CV990 Coronado and SE210 Caravelle between Zurich and Manchester (MAN). The meal was a hot dog - a hot bun and a cold sausage. Yum!

I flew from Cairo to Geneva on Swissair on July 1st, 1956 on a Douglas DC-7. We left at midnight. In those days no table trays. Meals were served on pillows. Breakfast was served at the Athens Airport restaurant. We were supposed to return on September 1st but canceled our return. Terrible service. I believe Egyptair serve a meal. So it's like in the USA flights to the Caribbean. Most European airlines like British / Swiss only serve water. ITA serves a beverage which is fabulous. Wow I flew on their Airbus 220 to Zurich from Llubjana.

So the flight took place in June 2023 - usually Swiss flies their A320series to Cairo so expect a different hard product too. Gone are the MD11 and A340 full service flights which were the best to/from Cairo during the 2000s and 2010s…

New simply Aviation video today

Last year I was really disapointed flying the same route as you with Swiss, even worse that the A330 that I flew did not have the IFE screen. Last month I flew with SQ from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City, just a 1h50 flight but SQ offered us a full service with complimentary hot meal.

Fantastic review. Ugggh, I need this to be my life. There is a serious deficit of me sitting inside of airliners.

It's crazy that they operate an A330-300 for this route. When I was at TUI and Monarch we did it on the 737 and 320. Don't miss those days.

Yes this is the normal Swiss plane. Flew Swiss 3 times, Zurich to Mumbai. Mumbai to Zurich and Zurich to Chicago. All of these routes have this same old layout. Swiss needs a refresh!

By eliminating complimentary catering, Swiss can save a little bit of money, but the resulting damage to its reputation is considerable. How can this be worth it?

I Havent Have A Bad Fligth Whit Swiss.Great Video And Info

idk if it's only me but i'd always enjoyed watching brutally honest rather than normal trip report💀💀

Lufthansa Flights to Larnaca is even worse - the same service on a 4 hour flight in an A320 or A321

On a one hour Thai Airways economy flight, I was recently served shrimp fried rice and a beverage.

Excellent trip report David! Given that I get free snack and drink selection on a 65 minute 50 Seat Jet American Eagle flight, only offering water on a three hour flight is flat out ridiculous.

Swiss offers same type of meal “service” in flights to/from Beirut… Disastrous 🤦🏻‍♂️

From ZRH to LIS flighttime will be 2:55, so Cairo is like an inner-europe flight

I think really think you should review Egyptair long-haul business class on the 787, maybe to/from Washington DC or Tokyo

I imagine the buy onboard catering was flown in on the inbound flight from Zurich and the inbound flight diminished their stocks enough that there wasn’t enough for the entire outbound flight. Definitely isn’t the first time this has happened.

Swiss has changed over time. The same thing applies to Austrian.After Lufthansa bought them out,they have become more like a budget airliner, or at least this was the impression I got. Probably, this was done in purpose, so they do not compete against Lufthansa.

I’m not sure how I feel about this… if it was a narrowbody I think I’d be comfortable with the service offered. Widebody almost implies you expect a full service. I’m not sure where to draw the line between ‘short haul service’ and ‘long haul expectation’ but 3.5 hours might be a bit shy? Perhaps those 4.5 to 5 hours plus maybe I’d expect a fuller service although as you say compared to Austrian it’s a big miss. Ex eu we kind of expect a long haul service (especially from London +5hrs)

die Frage ist auch wie lange flight swiss noch nach Cairo jetzt wo egyptait ach zürich kommen

I flew on their A330 economy to Beijing back in 2017, it was very good i remember, sad to see this right now

Three hours without food.... Better to eat a lot in the lounge.

I flew several times on there leisure carrier Edelweiss from ZRH to Edinburgh (Scotland), Seville (Spain) and Heraklion in Greece, which are all shorter then Cairo to ZRH. On Edelweiss flights in economy class, you always get a Meal and beverage service on short and medium haul flights, except alcohol you have to pay for it which is ok. Lufthansa Group is great getting you from A to B, but otherwise its terrible, and they only concentrate on making a bigger profit every year, instead of improving there service a lot more which is a real shame.

I was flying form Chicago to Honolulu 10 hours flight. Snack and beverage only. Swiss used to be great

Can you please try to do Qantas Airways long haul product next please qantas airways brutally honest would be a really exciting review so can you please review their 787 dreamliner or A330.

I would definitely agree they at least need sodas and pretzels, or an equivalent snack, for a 3 hour flight. Other than that, the plane looks comfortable.

It is a real shame that the (most of the) Lufthansa Group cut all the services in the Economy Class a couple of years ago because "customers supposedly wanted it that way, so they can decide on their own what they want to order". Sad that SWISS didn"t say no to it and continued the way it was before. Good review! Hope the water was at least good 😂

i'd say this fits more of a trip report style video than a brutally honest video i really liked your old trip report style videos with the 5 second intro and text all throughout. i especially want to see a video uploaded very often like that. don't get me wrong your brutally honest videos are great but i feel like you should keep a balance between frequent uploads and high quality videos.

That’s weird that you mentioned that sister airline Austrian airlines offer food on board flights that are 3h long (at least) Me & my partner flew in March from Sevilla to Vienna and were not given food. Complementary soft drinks and a small chocolate before landing, despite it’s a 3h 20 long…

Great review 🤪🤪

Thank you for that video! Would love to see a 3rd Color introduced in the Thumbnail for these narrated- but not animated videos. Blue for just text and red for the full experience. Would be amazing :)

Honestly not surprised. Flew SWISS business class in 2012 & again in 2015 & found the service incredibly mediocre. Crew did the absolute bare minimum & the catering was minimal & similar in quality to economy class of some other airlines. Yet, SWISS' business class fares are consistently MUCH higher than their competitors on the same routes even today.

Not sure if Egypt Air fly the same route, but I wonder what their service is like on a similar length, compared to Swiss. Certainly is very disappointing to see only a bottle of water provided on this flight. It's the Lufthansa group and I don't think they are that good anymore.

Have to say, I love the thumbs up from the bus driver. 🙂

Lufthansa and Austrian have the same service to and from Amman (not far from Cairo)

Servus! I flew Egyptair from FRA-CAI-FRA coming from Salzburg. The meal service was excellent and the food like in the old days. Egyptair just a bit chaotic on the ground but very good inflight service. The I flew SWISS from ZRH to Montreal and it is just VERY basic. I had better and friendlier flight crews on Easyjet and believe it or not on Ryanair on spanish domestic flights.The LHGroup is in an identity crisis. Keep your great videos!!

Swiss Economy class seats on A330s are a torture machine. Try it on a Montreal-Zurich red eye.

Just flew from New York to Geneva after taking an 767 from United to go there… The cabin was old in a 2011 build a330 compared to the older 76 ; the pitch was small, the entertainment was old and no universal power 😢 As a Swiss, I’m pretty disappointed about it, and flying to Newark on the way in was the best thing ever; we were 5 tourists at customs and maybe 300 locals… So as tourists fly United cause they have a retrofitted cabin and a lot more pitch 😅🙌

India Mentioned 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

Try BA London to Cairo.....

they offering cold cuts box for breakfast in biz actually

That food looks good. Better than some first class meals in the US.

Now check this out. LH flight frmo MUC to Canary Islands (4h30) - I was offered a 250ml bottle of water. That's all.

I flew First class from Singapore to Zurich in March 2023 and it was abysmal. The two male stewards were conspicuous by the absence all flight and had faces like a slapped arse. Whatever had pissed them off, it wasn’t me. On boarding I wasn’t even greeted before being told my seat was broken and they were trying to get an engineer to fix it as it was set in a reclined position. I was told that if it could not be reset and as the plane was full I would be bumped to another flight. When I said I am travelling with my wife the stewards answer was, her seat is ok! They wanted me to travel by myself and thought this was acceptable. They soon understood it wasn’t. After 30 min the seat was reset so panic over. The flight and service was poor, the staff were really miserable and had clearly had the smile gene removed at birth. The food was average and because it was an overnight flight the crew were not to be seen for long periods at a time. The cabin its self is dated and the flight was far from a first class experience. I will never fly with them again. To make matters worse they lost our baggage for 5 days, it was a nightmare trying to speak to their customer service. When it was found they expected us to collect from the airport, we would not expect accept this so they finally relented and delivered the cases to our home. It arrived filthy and damaged.

If they sell the flight and they regularly operate this service, then it is representative. Just because this doesn’t represent your standard European Swiss flight, it is a business decision that affects people in on this and on other less high profile routes.

Hi David, have you heard of Air Japan before ? It is a brand new Japanese airline that operates under the All Nippon Airways (ANA) group. Rival of ZipAir. It primarily handles charter flights and wet-lease operations, providing services to other airlines, including some routes for ANA. Air Japan mainly focuses on international flights (to Thailand, Singapore, etc). If you have a chance to try out Air Japan, that would be fantastic! Thanks in advance.

Nowadays I stay away from anything Europe describes as 'Premium'. And I almost never go wrong.

Switzerland apparently didn't get the memo that Africa is in fact a different contintent.

This is a trend that characterizes all European airlines, when it is not long haul service. When you have competitors like easyjet, price is a key parameter for most passengers, so in order to be relevant they offer minimum service model. And don't compare it to Turkish Airlines that is heavily subsidized by Erdogan and especially the manpower is much cheaper.

No excuses for Swiss - this is their EXISTING flight, and it is disgraceful.

Egypt air will give you a full meal from Cairo to Zürich.

SWISS flies the A330 on this route?! I'm very surprised. Is there a high demand between the two cities?

In my humble opinion, considering a wide variety of vlogs that I have been watching on YT, the only carriers that possess what one would call "standard of service" are Asian airlines, namely: Singapore Airlines, Asiana, Japan Airlines, ANA, Cathay Pacific and Eva Air. I would also include Malaysian Airlines, Emirates, Etihad and Korean Air with some restrictions.

Seems pretty good to me. Then again I'm stuck with Air Canada so my standards are very low. Very very low.