For all the complaining we used to do about the free snacks and meals that airlines served in economy class, there are some things I certainly miss, like the sandwiches on SWISS shorthaul flights.
Delicious Sandwich On SWSS
Sometimes we don’t miss things until they are gone. For this week’s Meal of the Week, I look back on a flight we flew from London to Zurich on SWISS almost a decade ago. At the time, Lufthansa and Air France had just gone the packaged sandwich route, while SWISS still offered very fresh and delicious sandwiches. Today, Lufthansa and SWISS only offer a buy onboard product while Air France offers a sweet or savory snack.
I figured that if I wrote a flight review of the 90-minute economy class flight instead of just incorporating it into my Meal of the Week feature, it would have wound up something like this:
- We boarded the plane
- We sat down
- We fastened our seatbelt
- We took off
- We ate a sandwich
- We drank coffee
- We ate chocolate
- We landed
- We got off the plane
So let’s focus on the sandwich. Lufthansa and Air Berlin used to have really good sandwiches in economy class. There is nothing like German bread and cheese! But Air Berlin went defunct and Lufthansa begin offering sandwiches wrapped in cellophane with expiration dates weeks in the future before cutting them altogether.
SWISS offered freshly-made sandwiches a little bit longer and I could tell you (with no offense directed toward the good bakers in the UK), the sandwiches are far better than the bread, cheese, and meat you will find in the four Star Alliance lounges at London Heathrow.
I had a salami sandwich while Heidi had a Swiss cheese sandwich. Well, she chose a cheese sandwich and I ate them both. They were very delicious.
Enjoy your sandwich. Made by hand fresh daily according to local tradition at a regional Swiss bakery — since 1896.
SWISS also has great onboard coffee and distributes Swiss chocolate prior to landing.
Not bad for a 90-minute flight! Today, at least you still get the chocolate.
Each week, my Meal of the Week feature examines an airline meal from my travels over the years. This may be a meal from earlier in the week or one served over two decades ago.
What year was this, Matthew? It’s a shame Swiss got rid of this as this did set them apart in Europe. Certainly a nice change from BA when everything seems to be “enhanced” away all the time…
Hi Tony, this goes all the way way back to 2015. This is just the nature of my Meal of the Weeks series…sometimes recent, sometimes old.
Meal of the week! Woohoo!
It’s funny that you posted this as I was just literally thinking of the great sandwiches LX used to serve.
Actually, all of their Y snacks were great. I loved their branding, too.
Some of my other LX Y snack favorites (not my pics, from the web)…
-the Butter Pretzel sandwich: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQuzOjuKQVxVZwBB5gESLmB9EdfTjx5h0XwZgw1bp1VbaNwdo4c0Dt1fmCo&s=10 (so tasty!)
-this chocolate bun: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/16/a8/b4/e0/schiphol.jpg
We didn’t realize how good we had it.
Those tasty fresh sandwiches on LX are gone, but not forgotten… Hopefully LX won’t leave us without chocolate.
I’d really love to learn more about airline catering. It would seem the easiest thing in the world to provide a quality sandwich (rule one: mayo on the side). But, all in all, decent meals with ingredients that aren’t expensive seems easy. There must be something that makes that difficult.