Written: June 4, 2011
And so I am on my flight to France (by way of Zurich) and have felt a rollercoaster of emotions as I depart Los Angeles (for “good.”) The only thing that makes this trip hard is that one should never, ever fly Swiss as economy… let alone Swiss (which apparently is no longer Swiss Air.) It’s been a horrible experience so far. They have the smallest seats and it looks like the crummiest, oldest airplane. On top of this, the woman sitting beside me smells like body odor mixed with pot. Not a good experience; however, I am rising above this experience.
Side note: Swiss has the worst customer service ever. As Nikki drove me to LAX, I feared that I would be ten minutes late to check-in, which had a 18:00 (6 pm) cut off. I called Swiss and asked the representative to let LAX know that I would be a few minutes later; however, the woman refused to help me (now matter how politely I pleaded) and then gave me a number for the LAX-Swiss desk, which was out of service when I dialed it.
I then called the number again and a male representative falsely told me that there was a 60 (not 90) minute check-in. Long story short, I got to the Swiss desk (again with no help from the LAX man who told me that the desk wasn’t even in that terminal, regardless of it being 50 feet ahead of us) and the representative there was very helpful. Even when her supervisor nearly refused to tell her whether or not I could be allowed to check-in, because I was 5 minutes late! At one point, the supervisor ignored the representative and started checking someone in without answering her! But in the end, I got onto my plane with it’s exceptionally narrow seat and had one of the most uncomfortable flights that I have ever had.