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I had not known that Swiss Air was a third-class airline, but now I do.
They're on my no-fly list.
(Of course, so is United, and I accidentally flew them last week.)
The morning starts off good. I wasn't sure I could wake up at 6.30 and catch the 6.56 bus, between getting my toiletries packed up, getting myself out the door, treading the labyrinth of halls and elevators at the Hotel de Rome, checking out, scooting across Bebelplatz, and waiting to cross Unter der Linden.
But, making it to the bus stop, I see the sign says "TXL 2 minutes". Score!
The airport confuses me a bit, because the check-in decks are associated with the boarding gates, and they're all dynamic. And the boards out front don't go out to 9.25, my boarding time.
It takes about ten minutes, but my flight number shows up, and I walk out to gate A6.
As I go by A5, I think, "Wow, they have a long line". But as I keep going, I realize it's actually the line for A6.
Thunderstruck by the huge line, I go back to the end. Here begins what's literally 75 minutes of waiting, wondering if I'm going to miss my flight.
Much of the problem is that they have four check-in counters open: one for economy class passengers, one for baggage drop-off (which I couldn't do because I couldn't check-in online, presumably because it's an international flight), and twofor business and first-class; the economy line is moving inches a minute, because all of the effort is going to those high-brow customers, and they're just allowed to walk right up in their special line, effectively cutting in front of all of us. I've said it before, but if the populist revolution ever comes, and it should, it's going to start in the airports, which are the most egregious examples of extremely preferential treatment for the 1%.
Finally the low-brow line speeds up when all the online baggage, the business people, and the filthy rich have boarded, and the check-ins are finally shared equally. The proles are allowed to finally move.
I guess the advantage of the combined check-in/gate setup is that they weren't going to take the plane off since they knew they had an outrageous line for check-in, even almost two hours before the flight, and they knew those people then had to get through the gate's security. But I was still stressed for the whole 75 minutes. And we were late taking off due to all the tom-foolery.
So there's my first screw-you-Swiss-Air of the day, and it's just barely 9.30.
On the plane I note that I have a window seat, changed over three seats from the aisle seat I was supposed to have. I'm annoyed by the fact that Swiss has shown for a second time in as many minutes (hours) that they don't give a *()@ about my personal preferences, but whatever. I get to see the landscape of Berlin leaving and Zurich arriving. And Zurich is kind of surprising to me. There are huge, dark forests everywhere, and then as we come in to the airport, I see they're even right up against the tarmac.
But I also notice that Swiss has changed my seat on my long-haul flight from Zurich to SFO, giving me a middle seat, which is the biggest F-U of the day. I want to see if I can change it in Zurich, though that seems pretty unlikely, and it turns out not to be possible, because I'm forced to get my ticket stamped by San Francisco Passport Control before anyone ever shows up at the Swiss Air deck at the gate.
I consider chocolate in the airport, but most of it's ridiculously expensive, and much of it is just Lindt anyway. Oh well.
So I sit down on the gate, and I now get to hear Swiss Air announcing that they're overbooked business class, and they're looking for "volunteers" to downgrade to economy. The last announcement I hear is offering 1,750 Swiss Francs (about the same value in USD).
So that's about seven strikes before I've gotten on the long-haul plane: insufficient staffing at Berlin; grossly preferential treatment to rich passengers at Berlin; somewhat late take-off at Berlin; changing my Berlin to Zurich seat; changing my Zurich to SFO seat, very much for the worse; not staffing the Zurich check-in; and overbooking.
Oh, and we play out the same preferential game boarding at Zurich: one horribly long, none-moving line for the proles, and a swift line for the upper crust. The difference is that when the high-brow clerk finishes admitting her people, she's afraid to let in the proles, lest a businessman (or woman) come up to the entrance and be momentarily inconvenienced. So she just stands there, watching the gate with first-class eyes.
Oh hey, we're late taking off again, either because Swiss didn't have their boarding gate adequately staffed or because they overbooked and had to bribe people to give up their chocolate chip cookies.
That should be their slogan: Swiss Air — doesn't run at all like a Swiss watch.
I'm gritting my teeth at the fact that I still have to spend twelve more hours with these bastards.
But in my mind, they've already been fired.
Swiss' seats have more leg room, which is a relief after the horrible United flight. However the seats are quite narrow. I mean, fortunately, that's only a problem if you're in the middle, and I clearly reserved a aisle seat.
For the few moments I just enjoy being able to move my legs, unlike on the United flight, not realizing how much I'll be hurting 11 hours later.
Swiss does not have a scam cart, where they try to encourage you to purchase food before they bring the free food. No, they just bring out food every two hours like clockwork. However, they do seem to have a cancer cart, where they tote around duty-free cigarette cartons.
Classy. And so socially responsible.
About nine hours into our flight we pass right over Kelowna, which was the site of last year's Blockstream offsite.
I'd thought the 10-hour overnight trip was the worst, because I was tired and (mostly) couldn't sleep, but the 11-hour daytime trip back is pretty bad as well. A lot of that is due to the uncomfortableness of the middle seat, which makes it hard to write. (I managed two histories, but I had to contort myself every time I wanted to write.) I also don't have the focus to read more than 150 pages or so of the very dense Forge of Darkness. I did well, however, collecting comics on my iPad from Hoopla, and I read through four trade paperbacks. I also manage to burn a couple of hours playing a mindless gem game; I should clearly find a few high-quality mindless games through Steam.
After the quick efficiency of European passport control, I'm bemused by the stupid FUD of the US. I'm checked five times total by US officials. They give a cursory look at my passport in Zurich (#1), as the first step in "San Francisco Passport Control". Then at SFO, I run my passport through a computer and answer some questions (#2). Then I pass the printout from computer and my passport and a printed list of questions to a passport control officer (#3), and he's the one that asks a few questions like the solitaire passport control in Zurich and Frankfurt. He stamps my printout which I show to an officer before I collect my luggage (#4). Then I show it yet again when exiting with my luggage (#5).
It's all relatively fast, but no wonder people are more reluctant to come to the US nowadays. We've become a positively xenophobic nation. And other than the idea of keeping people off planes on the far side, this is all entirely security theatre. Heck, that largely is too, since passports are also checked at check-in, at airport security, and when boarding the plane — albeit, not by US state officials.
It is a miracle of modern technology that I woke up at 6.30am in East Germany yesterday morning, and I made it home by 6.00pm in Berkeley. Plus nine time zones, of course; we were racing the sun the whole day.
Happy to be home, and done with traveling until May (possible February; we shall see).
They're on my no-fly list.
(Of course, so is United, and I accidentally flew them last week.)
The morning starts off good. I wasn't sure I could wake up at 6.30 and catch the 6.56 bus, between getting my toiletries packed up, getting myself out the door, treading the labyrinth of halls and elevators at the Hotel de Rome, checking out, scooting across Bebelplatz, and waiting to cross Unter der Linden.
But, making it to the bus stop, I see the sign says "TXL 2 minutes". Score!
The airport confuses me a bit, because the check-in decks are associated with the boarding gates, and they're all dynamic. And the boards out front don't go out to 9.25, my boarding time.
It takes about ten minutes, but my flight number shows up, and I walk out to gate A6.
As I go by A5, I think, "Wow, they have a long line". But as I keep going, I realize it's actually the line for A6.
Thunderstruck by the huge line, I go back to the end. Here begins what's literally 75 minutes of waiting, wondering if I'm going to miss my flight.
Much of the problem is that they have four check-in counters open: one for economy class passengers, one for baggage drop-off (which I couldn't do because I couldn't check-in online, presumably because it's an international flight), and twofor business and first-class; the economy line is moving inches a minute, because all of the effort is going to those high-brow customers, and they're just allowed to walk right up in their special line, effectively cutting in front of all of us. I've said it before, but if the populist revolution ever comes, and it should, it's going to start in the airports, which are the most egregious examples of extremely preferential treatment for the 1%.
Finally the low-brow line speeds up when all the online baggage, the business people, and the filthy rich have boarded, and the check-ins are finally shared equally. The proles are allowed to finally move.
I guess the advantage of the combined check-in/gate setup is that they weren't going to take the plane off since they knew they had an outrageous line for check-in, even almost two hours before the flight, and they knew those people then had to get through the gate's security. But I was still stressed for the whole 75 minutes. And we were late taking off due to all the tom-foolery.
So there's my first screw-you-Swiss-Air of the day, and it's just barely 9.30.
On the plane I note that I have a window seat, changed over three seats from the aisle seat I was supposed to have. I'm annoyed by the fact that Swiss has shown for a second time in as many minutes (hours) that they don't give a *()@ about my personal preferences, but whatever. I get to see the landscape of Berlin leaving and Zurich arriving. And Zurich is kind of surprising to me. There are huge, dark forests everywhere, and then as we come in to the airport, I see they're even right up against the tarmac.
But I also notice that Swiss has changed my seat on my long-haul flight from Zurich to SFO, giving me a middle seat, which is the biggest F-U of the day. I want to see if I can change it in Zurich, though that seems pretty unlikely, and it turns out not to be possible, because I'm forced to get my ticket stamped by San Francisco Passport Control before anyone ever shows up at the Swiss Air deck at the gate.
I consider chocolate in the airport, but most of it's ridiculously expensive, and much of it is just Lindt anyway. Oh well.
So I sit down on the gate, and I now get to hear Swiss Air announcing that they're overbooked business class, and they're looking for "volunteers" to downgrade to economy. The last announcement I hear is offering 1,750 Swiss Francs (about the same value in USD).
So that's about seven strikes before I've gotten on the long-haul plane: insufficient staffing at Berlin; grossly preferential treatment to rich passengers at Berlin; somewhat late take-off at Berlin; changing my Berlin to Zurich seat; changing my Zurich to SFO seat, very much for the worse; not staffing the Zurich check-in; and overbooking.
Oh, and we play out the same preferential game boarding at Zurich: one horribly long, none-moving line for the proles, and a swift line for the upper crust. The difference is that when the high-brow clerk finishes admitting her people, she's afraid to let in the proles, lest a businessman (or woman) come up to the entrance and be momentarily inconvenienced. So she just stands there, watching the gate with first-class eyes.
Oh hey, we're late taking off again, either because Swiss didn't have their boarding gate adequately staffed or because they overbooked and had to bribe people to give up their chocolate chip cookies.
That should be their slogan: Swiss Air — doesn't run at all like a Swiss watch.
I'm gritting my teeth at the fact that I still have to spend twelve more hours with these bastards.
But in my mind, they've already been fired.
Swiss' seats have more leg room, which is a relief after the horrible United flight. However the seats are quite narrow. I mean, fortunately, that's only a problem if you're in the middle, and I clearly reserved a aisle seat.
For the few moments I just enjoy being able to move my legs, unlike on the United flight, not realizing how much I'll be hurting 11 hours later.
Swiss does not have a scam cart, where they try to encourage you to purchase food before they bring the free food. No, they just bring out food every two hours like clockwork. However, they do seem to have a cancer cart, where they tote around duty-free cigarette cartons.
Classy. And so socially responsible.
About nine hours into our flight we pass right over Kelowna, which was the site of last year's Blockstream offsite.
I'd thought the 10-hour overnight trip was the worst, because I was tired and (mostly) couldn't sleep, but the 11-hour daytime trip back is pretty bad as well. A lot of that is due to the uncomfortableness of the middle seat, which makes it hard to write. (I managed two histories, but I had to contort myself every time I wanted to write.) I also don't have the focus to read more than 150 pages or so of the very dense Forge of Darkness. I did well, however, collecting comics on my iPad from Hoopla, and I read through four trade paperbacks. I also manage to burn a couple of hours playing a mindless gem game; I should clearly find a few high-quality mindless games through Steam.
After the quick efficiency of European passport control, I'm bemused by the stupid FUD of the US. I'm checked five times total by US officials. They give a cursory look at my passport in Zurich (#1), as the first step in "San Francisco Passport Control". Then at SFO, I run my passport through a computer and answer some questions (#2). Then I pass the printout from computer and my passport and a printed list of questions to a passport control officer (#3), and he's the one that asks a few questions like the solitaire passport control in Zurich and Frankfurt. He stamps my printout which I show to an officer before I collect my luggage (#4). Then I show it yet again when exiting with my luggage (#5).
It's all relatively fast, but no wonder people are more reluctant to come to the US nowadays. We've become a positively xenophobic nation. And other than the idea of keeping people off planes on the far side, this is all entirely security theatre. Heck, that largely is too, since passports are also checked at check-in, at airport security, and when boarding the plane — albeit, not by US state officials.
It is a miracle of modern technology that I woke up at 6.30am in East Germany yesterday morning, and I made it home by 6.00pm in Berkeley. Plus nine time zones, of course; we were racing the sun the whole day.
Happy to be home, and done with traveling until May (possible February; we shall see).