Easter trip to Berlin (part 2: ZRH-BER)

After my chance to try out the A220, I connected directly onto a Swiss flight to Berlin.  I had booked myself a 45-minute layover, since I’d read that Zurich airport was very efficient.  The incoming flight was delayed by about 10 min, but I wasn’t too worried because I figured I’d either make it or I might get EU261 compensation.  Spoiler: I easily made it with no stress.  The Zurich airport really is well-designed.  I really can’t imagine doing a layover anywhere near as short at Heathrow, even if I was connecting off a domestic flight.

I moved swiftly from the non-Schengen D gates in the direction of the A gates.  When I arrived at the transfer passport control, there was only 1 guard stand open.  She was extremely friendly and efficient and checked my passport and vaccine card.  From there, I continued directly to my departure gate, gate A73.  To speed up the journey, the A gates had a travelvator, which is a common sight in airports.  This one, however, was an underpass to the main concourse, which was great fun.

Upon arrival at the gate, the flight was already boarding, which was expected.  Since I was already toward the end of the boarding process, I decided to just go ahead and board last.  I was seated in seat 1C, so it wasn’t like I’d need to go very far once on the plane.

This Swiss flight was operated by an A320, which is an extremely common workhorse of a plane. 

Shortly after I took my seat, boarding was complete, and the door was closed.  We soon pushed back and had an efficient taxi to the runway.  I really do love how efficient Zurich airport is at all stages of travel.

Once airborne, the onboard service began.  I was served a light meal like on the previous flight.  My meal consisted of what was basically a caprese salad as the main course.  It was served along side a small cheese plate and jelly/custard dessert.  The food itself was pretty unremarkable in terms of flavors and presentation. I again had a choice between a white or brown bread roll.  I guess the two small meals combined roughly correlate to one simple dinner.

Like the previous plane, the plane had overhead TVs, but they were normal-sized.  However, instead of showing the inflight map, they just played some cartoon animals just doing animal things.  I assume it was meant to entertain any kids on board, but I just found its existence confusing.

Quickly enough, we began our descent into Berlin.  One thing that I enjoy about these short European flights in business class is that the meal takes almost as long as the overall flight.  It’s kind of a fun experience to have dinner, which one needs to have anyway, and then appear in a new destination.

I feel like Swiss prepares for landing a bit earlier than average for other European airlines I’ve flown, but maybe I just haven’t been on many short flights lately.

Upon arrival in Berlin, I made my way directly to baggage claim because there is no passport control for intra-Schengen flights. 

As I had largely expected, it took some time for the bags to arrive at baggage claim, but fortunately the priority tag worked.  My bag was one of the first couple off the plane.

I grabbed my bag and made my way immediately for the train from the airport. The walk was extremely short from baggage claim to the train, and I made it on the train despite only having about 6 minutes from grabbing my bag to the train’s departure time.  I highly recommend having a DB Navigator account on your phone before going to Germany so that you can buy a travel pass on your phone instead of waiting for a machine (which always have really long lines at airports in my experience).

In summary, this second short hop from Zurich to Berlin was went as expected.  Given my short but extremely efficient connection in Zurich, I can’t really say much about the ground experience, but the experience I had in Zurich would’ve been completely unimaginable in Heathrow, so I’m going to give it a good rating (4/5).  Business class on the A320 is exactly what one would expect: a blocked middle seat (3/5).  The food was the same size as the first flight, which is what I’d expected, but it’s interesting that a 9 pm flight and a 5:40 pm flight had the same size meal (3/5).  The service was efficient and professional (4/5).  The in-flight entertainment was virtually non-existent (1/5).  Of the four flights on this trip, I knew full-well that this flight would be the most boring/routine (15/25).  Despite the low score, I really didn’t have a bad flight at all; it was just extremely unremarkable.

From a points perspective, I used 53,000 United miles and spent $156 in total for the entire set of 4 flights.  The comparison flight is a return trip in Lufthansa in economy, which would’ve cost £450 ($585). I’d value 53,000 miles as being worth around $583.  In effect, I paid $78 each way for an upgrade to business class, which isn’t a bad deal for 4 flights.  The biggest advantage of using the miles in this situation for me, however, was to avoid the $585 sticker shock.  I paid for the taxes and fees with my Amex Platinum card, which earned me 780 Amex points.  Unfortunately, award tickets don’t earn any other type of points on United.