Leave it to SWISS to create a sophisticated, beautiful new first class lounge now open in the A Gates (Schengen) area of Zurich Airport.
Like the E-Gates First Class Lounge, the bar design resembles a plane fuselage–made of beautiful wood.
Around the corner is seating:
A full bar and restaurant offers a la carte and buffet dining and a huge selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. For coffee lovers, a barista is on-hand to craft exquisite coffee.
Also in the lounge: showers, restrooms, a quiet room (with two easy chairs like the ones in the E-Gates Senator Lounge), conference room, and smoking room. The SWISS First Class Lounge A Gates lounge does not offer sleeping rooms.
Thanks to a flight delay, I spent over five hours in the lounge…it was truly a treat. While the a la carte menu is not as extensive as in the E-Gates First Class lounge, I enjoyed a very delicious Swiss-German dinner of soup, salad, and bratwurst.
And the hot chocolate brownie was heavenly!
CONCLUSION
I was flying from Los Angeles to Rome via Munich, Zurich, and Frankfurt. Initially, I was denied access at the door of the SWISS First Class Lounge A Gates. The agent insisted that because of the extra connection, I was not eligible for access admittance. That is not how I read the rules, but I remained silent while she checked with her colleague.
Her colleague agreed that I was not eligible, but nevertheless allowed me in as a “one-time” exception. It would have been counterproductive to argue after I had already been granted access, but I will follow-up with this issue in a future post.
Stay tuned for a full review of this lounge next week. It’s a beauty!
> Read More: SWISS First Class Lounge E-Gates Review
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A Gates are Schengen at ZRH.
Thanks Phil. Was just a typo on my part.
I still don’t understand why you are so high on Swiss. Regardless of how you feel about Aeroplan’s error, it was clearly Swiss that refused to honor tickets that Aeroplan mistakenly booked because Swiss accidentally granted Star Alliance partners access to F space (and part of the problem is that it seems as though Swiss opens a lot of F seats for their elite members). Aeroplan has no control over what Swiss releases to Star Alliance partners, and the blame lies entirely with Swiss. The last time that happened, its likely that there weren’t enough bookings as it was shut down much faster and Swiss just ate it, but this time Swiss couldn’t possibly honor all those tickets, given that they release a lot of seats assuming there aren’t a ton of people eligible to claim them. Aeroplan was faced with either having to pay Swiss for all those seats or rebook and refund you the difference in miles, which they had the right to do because at no time did their fare chart state you could use Aeroplan miles to book a ticket on Swiss F (thus mutual mistake).
Wait, so even if you are arriving LH F passenger via FRA and proceeding to ZRH onward to another destination in LX on a same day, you’re not allowed to use their F lounge in ZRH? I have heard about this “extra connection” rule but never thought it would be strictly enforced.
I believe the agent was wrong. We’ll get into that in a separate post.