Swiss International Air Lines Reviews 

Our plane was late arriving. I spoke to the agent about missing connecting flights. She was dismissive, condescending and just plain rude. Terrible customer service.

I had a really bad experience flying with Swiss Airlines. The in-flight screens never changed and were old and not working properly throughout the flight.
What upset me most was the attitude of the air hostess, who was very rude. When I complained, she threatened that if I kept speaking up, she would call the police. This was extremely embarrassing and completely unprofessional.
Before the trip, I was genuinely excited, since I expected Swiss Airlines to reflect the same quality and elegance associated with Switzerland. Sadly, the reality was very disappointing.
I will never choose to fly with this airline again, even if it were my only option.

Travelled Heathrow to Geneva 21 st August. Was charged £60 for a bag at the gate had not checked it online for £25 as met their size criteria and fitted under the seat but didn’t fit the box they provided - which was very small. Bag then put in the hold so had to wait for baggage reclaim. So checked baggage online for return trip - price £40. Will never fly with Swiss again

Terrible. If you have the choice don’t travel long haul with Swiss Air. Their airline fleet is old/tired and not fully functioning/ verging on placing passengers in danger due to the poor state of the airplane.
My two children and I flew from Zurich to JFK with Swiss air. One chair didn’t recline without the assistance of a male member of cabin crew, a second chair had the seat cushion not fitting the chair so there was an expanse of exposed plastic along with the remains of someone else’s food. The most worrying part was that the wires connecting the console were exposed which could have caused a fire if not pointed out by my daughter. Without saying the console didn’t work. The cabin staff covered the exposed wired with tape and said the flight is full so we can’t do anything else.
On our return flight two out of the four toilets were not fully functional. One was completely out of service and the second had no running water to the sink so you were unable to wash your hands. Further to this a 6 ft 6 inch passenger was sitting behind my daughter. Every time she put her seat back to sleep the wife of this passenger would tell my daughter to put her seat back in the upright position. After several hours of this I was forced to complain to the cabin crew. Thankfully they moved this passenger to business class but it should not have ruined half of our flight and for me to complain for the cabin crew to do something.
Given the choice I will not be flying long haul with Swiss air again.

What a scam, incompetent group of scammers, this company have to fail. Their support is the worst I ever had from any company on the planet. I paid for the business bid upgrade, which I eventually won, but they are not assigning to me and my family an empty seat next to each member. Total fraud, I paid for the business upgrade and they deliver to me an economy service. I'm reporting this and will go deep into this matter until they get fined.

Charged me for seats that their own (useless) Live chat system tells me are not valid. Impossible to get any answer from Live Chat and no refund given of money taken under what would seem to be false pretences. No answer from customer service line. I am told that the Live chat agents just end the chat when they can’t be bothered to answer and this did actually seem to be the case as Mele did exactly this to me. Be aware. Will not be flying Swiss again.

First Class prices – but unfortunately no longer First Class service

We travelled with SWISS First Class from Düsseldorf via Zurich to Hong Kong and back. I am also a long-standing Miles & More Senator. Unfortunately, this journey left us seriously questioning what has happened to the quality standards at SWISS.

It started in Düsseldorf with extremely poor and, frankly, humiliating treatment at check-in, despite travelling in First Class and holding Senator status. We complained to SWISS immediately. A response? None.

The return flight from Hong Kong to Zurich was even more disappointing.

Before departure, we were informed that our son had to be involuntarily downgraded from First Class to Business Class because his First Class seat was defective and unusable. Apart from the considerable difference between the product we had paid for and what was actually provided, this meant that our family was separated for the entire long-haul flight.

On an aircraft with only a handful of First Class seats, one would expect SWISS to ensure that every one of those seats is fully operational.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning.

There was no functioning Wi-Fi on the entire flight – something we have experienced with SWISS several times before – and the entertainment system at my wife's First Class seat did not work either.

So, on a single approximately 12-hour First Class flight:

one First Class seat was completely unusable, resulting in an involuntary downgrade;
the entertainment system at another First Class seat did not work;
the Wi-Fi did not work at all.

For a product marketed and priced as First Class, this accumulation of technical failures is simply unacceptable.

The journey ended fittingly in the SWISS First Class Lounge in Zurich. Instead of a simple “Good morning” or “How was your flight?”, the employee's first words to us, delivered in an unnecessarily abrupt tone, were simply: “Where are you coming from?”

Not exactly the welcome one expects in a First Class lounge after a long-haul flight.

What is particularly disappointing is not one isolated problem, but the accumulation of failures on a single journey: poor check-in service, a defective First Class seat, an involuntary downgrade, a defective entertainment system, no Wi-Fi, questionable service in the First Class Lounge and, so far, virtually nonexistent complaint handling.

SWISS continues to charge premium prices and market itself as a premium airline. In our experience, however, the quality of the product and service increasingly fails to match that promise.

We are not looking for another standard apology explaining how sorry everyone is. At First Class prices, customers should be able to expect functioning seats and entertainment, reliable service and respectful treatment.

Unfortunately, SWISS increasingly gives us the same impression as the Lufthansa Group generally: a once highly regarded premium product in continuous decline, while the prices and premium claims remain remarkably unchanged.

Fortunately, particularly on routes to Asia, there are excellent alternatives.

Horrible crew service. They didnt prepare sufficient kid meal and the first sentence of the crew is “it is not our problem, and here is only adult meal, take it or leave it”.

Due to the cancellation of our first-leg flight from Bali to Singapore, we realised that we would no longer be able to make our Swiss Air flight from Singapore to London. We immediately contacted Swiss Air via live chat because we were already extremely stressed and urgently needed help finding an alternative flight.
After explaining the situation several times, we were eventually connected with someone called Sue. Unfortunately, the experience was extremely frustrating. I explained our situation clearly, but her responses were very slow, often taking 5–10 minutes, and were extremely brief, which made the situation even more stressful.
What was particularly frustrating was that she first offered us an earlier flight than our original flight — which obviously made no sense, as we had already explained that we were unable to reach Singapore in time for our original departure. Later, she came back with our original flight again, despite everything having been explained multiple times.
The chat lasted around 1.5 hours, at a time when we were already under enormous pressure and simply trying to find a way to get out of Bali and continue our journey home.
In the end, we had to call Swiss Air directly. Unfortunately, by then we had to pay significantly more than our original ticket price to move to a flight the following day.
This was one of the most stressful customer service experiences I've had. Rather than helping us in an already difficult situation, the live chat experience added considerably more stress and wasted a huge amount of our time.
I hope Swiss Air reviews this chat and considers how urgent travel disruption situations should be handled, because this was simply not good enough.
After this experience, we will be avoiding Swiss Air in the future and will think very carefully before ever using this company again.

This was possibly the worst experience of my life. I had been on holiday for three weeks, and although I enjoyed myself a lot, I was ecstatic to return home. What was meant to be a 4/5 return home with an hour layover in between my connecting flight, turned into a twisted mess of complete disorganisation and unreliability. My first flight from LBJ to Zurich was delayed by three hours!! This meant I would miss my second flight by a mile (at least 2 hours). The customer service at LBJ was brilliant and they decided the best decision for my family was to take the flight to Zurich, and they would book us on another flight to Hamburg and then to Manchester. However, the next flight to Hamburg (which was the easiest and fastest solution) was not until 6am the next day!! So we were booked into a budget hotel paid for by the airline, and told we should not request our baggage as it could take up to 3 hours, but it would be okay as our hotel would have everything we needed, the only thing would be we would have to wear the same clothes. We arrived and there was quite literally NOTHING. No body wash. No toothpaste/toothbrush. No deodorant. And on top of this my room smelt strongly of raw chicken. The dinner provided was reasonably small, and my family had to walk to McDonald’s to then buy McFlurrys (which in Switzerland cost 30 francs for a family of 5!!!!!!). Then, we wake up at 4:30am, to then get on the shuttle bus(5am) to the airport (5:15ish) for our flight to Hamburg. We checked in and everything and we’re waiting at the gate to board the plane, when slowly the boarding time increased and increased until it was delayed by an hour. Then, CANCELLED. After asking if it was going to be cancelled because of all the delays, we were told to wait at the gate. So now we were waiting around for nothing, woken up SOOO early, excited to go home, and we were completely let down. When we arrived at the transfer desk we were told the only solution was to get a flight to Düsseldorf at 4pm. So we were waiting around the airport for 10 WHOLE HOURS. Our seats on this flight were random and so I had a middle seat between two men and so did the rest of my family, completely separated. As a woman I felt quite vulnerable. Then the plane did not take off for about 15 minutes and was also delayed by an hour before boarding. Considering our connecting flight only had an hour and a half layover, it was likely we would miss out and we were all filled with disappointment towards the end of the first flight. But miraculously, our plane landed with 7 minutes to spare, so some kind and generous people on the plane (and some the complete opposite) allowed us to go first exiting the plane, and we quite literally sprinted through the airport, raced through EES (with some lovely workers helping us a lot) and luckily made it with one minute to spare. If we hadn’t run we probably would’ve been stuck in Düsseldorf for another day and we made it by the skin of our teeth. The seats were random again, also sat in between two men.

Quite literally would never wish this upon ANYONE. Particularly for young children this would be nightmarish considering what was meant to be an 8 hour travel day (inc. drive to/from airport) quadrupled into a 32+ hour travel.

Connecting flight from Sicily to London via Zurich Switzerland. Delayed flight, no system in Zurich to help customers fast track through passport control and get their connecting flight. Instead we were made to wait to go through passport control customers refusing to allow us to go to the front of the queue… An hour after landing at Heathrow we’re still waiting for our luggage. Unhappy customer.

In over 50 years of flying, Swiss Air is the absolute WORST airlines on the face of planet earth. You've been WARNED.

After waiting at the London airport for hours, they simply cancelled their flight. Swiss Air is considered one of the worst airlines in the world.
The attendant at Heathrow said Swiss Air would 'automatically' refund me. I then bought a ticket on British Airlines and flew out within 2 hours at another terminal at Heathrow.
Swiss Air's chat room had over 361 people on their waiting list - no joke - this is UNACCEPTABLE and utterly unprofessional.
In any event, I have an email from Swiss Air stating they would refund me back despite their ignoring all requests.
When I emailed them, their email bounced back:
Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message to the following address.
550: 5.1.1 Recipient Unknown
Just Google 'Swiss Airlines review' on Google to see how many negative reviews are there. Avoid this airlines at any cost.

I would give zero stars if possible. The most useless AI chatbot I have ever encountered + their phone app almost never works (constantly bugs). Customer service at its absolute worse. After my flight was cancelled, I was put in a line to speak to an actual agent, I spent 2.5 hrs in that line, and then went away from the computer for 10 min during which time the chatbot asked if I was still there. I didn't reply immediately, the chatbot took me out of the live line and I had to restart the waiting from scratch. Their system is abysmal.

No customer service, only AI. Terrible experience with 8 hour layover, offered us nothing. Only two agents working in Zurich line was around the corner. Airplane WiFi was down. Just a joke of an airline. I was one and done flying this. Sticking with Airfrance in the future

Cancelled a flight. No advice given at the airport - what to do, where to go, set expectations. Just someone handing out poorly worded leaflets.

With around 100 passengers standing in line for the support desk (to be rerouted etc) they inexplicably just closed the desk at 10pm and went home - absolutely no customer care whatsoever.

Bear in mind they are bound by certain rules - one being “right to care” obligations.

As a result left int he airport overnight with no solution.

On their amateurish online chat the only advice given was a flight in 24 hours time to London (the flight was to Manchester). When advising the muppet that we needed to go to Manchester (or further north) they offered Manchester in 3 days time.

The under trained (and rude) advisor ignored the question about their duty to care and offered no advice on accommodation etc.

In fact she only tried to scaremonger me by saying they’d only pay for part of the flight - this is false as they have a duty to reroute to get us home as early as possible.

I pressed her on better flight options and saw one leaving in the morning via Alicante (Swiss + / Jet2) via Skyscanner and she said that she couldn’t see it online. I gave her the flight number but she ignored that too. I asked for this to be escalated to a capable person and was given a phone number that was out of service! Then she ended the call as she couldn’t help any further.

When I tried the automated rebooking service it wanted to fly me via flaming Ethiopia!!

Zero customer service - terrible technology. Trains monkeys would do a better job

My advice to anyone reading this - avoid this airline at all costs - they are not fit for purpose. Only RyanAir comes close for zero customer service.

My 11:00 a.m. flight from Geneva was cancelled, they rebooked it with Lufthansa at 6:00 a.m. the next day on a lower class seat. Nelly, Swiss's AI chat couldn't even understand and put me on a wait list of 611 people ahead of me!!!! There is no way to get my money back through this airline. Terrible terrible customer service and lone of the worst airlines that I have had to deal with.

Apparently we were upgraded without notice (or request) from premium economy with seats we had picked to business but they separated me and my travel partner without asking. The seats in business are quite hard. There is no specific a/c so I was a bit warm (not too bad). The food looked amazing but was borderline inedible but there was plenty of food. The equipment to charge phone, adjust seats etc is hidden (not user friendly or intuitive). Terrible design.

The service however was excellent.

In business, my window seat (now next to a stranger) was blocked because he immediately converted his seat to a bed. Bottom line- it was far a far worse experience than on my previous coach trips on Swiss with an extra leg room upgrade - Miami-Zurich. It was far worse than any coach class that I normally take on any airline.

We flew Swiss Air LX 18 from Zurich to Newark airport on Aug 27. The pre boarding service was excellent. The airline kept us informed and the boarding service was excellent.
However, the interior of the plane was nasty. Seems in economy han no leg room for the 8 hour flight. A seat next to me was broken. The flight attendant wound up taping it together. The seat directly in front of my son was also broken, whereby the passenger in front almost crushed in when he leaned back too far. The poor passenger in front told the flight attendant that he needed another seat, but was told there were none available, so the poor guy had to sit upright without comfortably leaning back in his seat the entire flight.
The plane seemed a bit dirty, and the food service was skimpy. Before landing at Newark, passengers were served potato salad and a piece of bread, rather than something with protein,
The flight attendants were, however kind and attentive but also at a loss to solve the interior problems.
This was the only time I had a bad experience with this airline, and it discourages me from using them going forward

I was charged 113 EUROS for checking a bag that I had previously received an email encouraging us to check our carryon bags. The gate attendent treated us very abruptly and that we had no options. Then the main return flight from Zurich to Washington DC was delayed by over 3 hours due to a number of reasons. The only compensation was a serving of water and a small cheese cup. The time between transfer flights was also short because the flight from Florence was late in arrival. I am handicapped with a prosthetic but there was no choice but to try and walk very fast. Once the plane was in the air, it was so cold in the cabin that everyone was freezing. I asked the attendent could the temperature be adjusted and she said that was not possible and that it was even colder in the rear of the plane.

Swiss should be named EasyJet 2 but overpriced with the new regulations of no 8kg baggage included anymore in the basic ticket. Not even a proper backpack to hold. Also, their personnel in Athens airport was very disrespectful towards the passengers!