Swiss International Air Lines Reviews 2,883

I can not believe these reviews...I haven't flown for over 30 years ...I do not like flying....I had air tickets given to me off my son ...to Geneva..( I ve always wanted to visit Freddie Mercury Statute in the Wonderful Montreux) ...we went and Swiss Air were superb ...I mentioned I was nervous and air stewardess MANON...was wonderful with me... settled me ..
. water given out when I really needed it and the nice touch of swiss chocolate at end of journey...nice touch...a different air journey I had had 30 years before when I said I would never fly again...thank you Swiss Air ...good experience..x

...

Unfortunately, working in Germany and having my family in Italy, I often end up flying with Star Alliance airlines, including Swiss. I even hold frequent flyer status with Miles & More, earned after more than 10 years of travel. Sadly, today’s experience was the final drop in a long series of frustrations.
This flight was delayed, and while delays happen, the way it was handled was unacceptable. The crew acted as if they were “doing their job,” but their attitude was rude and dismissive. Even as a frequent flyer, I was denied for exceeding carry-on weight by just 1 kg. What is the point of “status” if it gives you nothing?
And this is not a one-time issue:
I have repeatedly received chocolate on board that was expired.
Prices are sky-high compared to low-cost airlines, yet the service is worse.
The so-called benefits of frequent flyer status feel useless and insulting.
To put it into numbers: reaching Frequent Traveller requires 650 points per year. On European routes, this equals 40+ round trips—in other words, at least €7,500–10,000 spent every year. With that money, you could fly business class on Emirates or Qatar Airways to Asia several times a year and be treated with real hospitality. Instead, Swiss delivers rude staff, expired chocolate, and zero recognition for loyalty.
Swiss markets itself as “premium,” but the reality is a budget experience at luxury prices. A disappointing airline that has completely lost touch with its customers.

It's shocking and frankly sad how far down Swiss has fallen.
You pay relatively premium prices for service and features that are comparable to the low cost carriers.

What really prompted me to vent here is that on my recent flight, the automatically seats alloted to my girlfriend and me were not only not together, they were on opposite ends of the aircraft.

The only way to sit together ( there were obviously seats available ) was to pay 16 chf per set to change both our seats.

absolutely scummy behaviour.

and this is just the most recent incident.
this is not to mention the last time I flew to India with them, the entertainment system was just not working, on an 8 hour flight.
We told the flight attendent, who said she would check it out, then dissappeared to never return again. fantastic.

looking at every other review here, its clear that this is just how things are at swiss now, and they have no intention of improving.

avoid at all costs.

Business class on this airline is shockingly substandard — easily among the worst I’ve ever encountered. The seats are narrow, cramped, and feel more like economy with a slightly wider armrest. The electronics are unreliable at best, and the seat controls are absurdly positioned right at the elbow, so you constantly shift your seat every time you try to rest.

Frankly, it’s an embarrassment to call this “business class.” Compared to other airlines, this experience is the equivalent of a run-down roadside motel trying to pass itself off as a five-star hotel.

However, one member of staff more than made up for the shortcomings of the airline, they redeemed its reputation - however, technical, design and comfort issues remained.

I am deeply disappointed by the way SWISS has handled a booking irregularity on one of my flights. During a reservation for a multi-segment journey, the system allowed me to skip seat selection for the first leg (short-haul), assigning a seat automatically and free of charge — as per standard policy.

However, for the second (long-haul) segment, no complimentary seats were shown. The platform forced me to select a paid seat (from €55) in order to complete the booking. At no point was the option to continue without seat selection available, which contradicts SWISS’s own policies and what I experienced for the first segment.

To confirm the issue, I re-ran a booking simulation (on 23 July 2025) using identical parameters — and complimentary seats did appear in the seat map, proving that the system malfunctioned during my initial booking.

I reached out to SWISS Customer Service, requesting a technical verification of the logs at the time of booking — a basic and reasonable step.

Instead, my case was closed with a copy-paste response stating that “no dysfunction was observed” and that my seat choice was “voluntary”, which is plainly false. No explanation was offered, no logs were consulted, and no refund was issued.

The lack of transparency and refusal to properly investigate this technical issue undermines trust in your booking system and in your customer service.

At minimum, I expect a refund for a seat fee that was incurred due to a bug on your platform, not by choice.

To date, I have received no response from either SWISS or Lufthansa Group.

After Lufthansa (the ticketing carrier) refused to assist me with a serious seating issue, I contacted Swiss Airlines via live chat, as they were the operating airline for my family’s business class flight. Unfortunately, my experience with Swiss support was extremely unprofessional and concerning.

I was connected to a representative named Dolly, who refused to provide her full name. She initially claimed she could not make any changes to the seats. When I continued to insist, she told me that our seats had not been changed and that we were still seated together. However, when I asked for official confirmation and kept pressing for clarity, she admitted that in fact we were not seated together.

I explained that it is illegal for small children to be seated alone on a long-haul flight, especially when we had paid for business class seats months in advance to ensure proper seating. I requested to speak with a supervisor, but she told me “all supervisors are busy and unavailable.” When I again asked for her full name for accountability, she abruptly ended the chat without resolving the issue.

This experience was unacceptable for several reasons:
1. Contradictory and misleading information was given regarding seat assignments.
2. The representative showed a lack of accountability and refused to escalate the issue to a supervisor.
3. Ending the chat when a passenger is raising a safety and legal concern about unaccompanied minors is completely unprofessional and negligent, especially for business class customers who expect a higher standard of service.

Swiss Airlines failed to provide the level of professionalism, safety, and customer care expected—not only for any passenger, but especially for a family traveling in business class. This left us feeling ignored, misled, and unsupported before an important long-haul flight.

Cancelled flight 30 minutes after plane departure time. Refusing to pay compensation saying the reason for cancellation excludes from paying due to EU rules. I asked several times what was the reason for cancellation so I could check this and they refuse to give me the reason. I think their policy is to try to back out of compensation hoping most people will give up. I have set a solicitor on to this how.

"Swiss Airlines lost my luggage and then refused to offer any compensation—an appalling level of service from a supposedly premium airline. Not only was my trip disrupted, but their customer support was dismissive and unhelpful throughout. Losing a passenger’s belongings is bad enough, but refusing to take responsibility is disgraceful. I expected far better and will be avoiding Swiss Airlines in the future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We paid for the flight from zurich to cairo and back about 700 usd per person and for this high price we didn‘t even get a meal or even a soft drink.later they wanted to sell us the food and the drinks.we got a very small water bottle.
The plain was very small (Airbus 220) and didnt have any entertainment system at all only very small screen to show commercials and the location.
We are very disapointed from swiss that they reduced the quality that much.

We have just arrived to NYC from Zurich. We are a family of 5 but this time we were traveling in a group of 6 with a friend of our eldest daughter. The flight was an hour late. We had 6 seats together. At the entrance we descovered that they have changed our daughter friends seat. Someone thought that a 16 year old was traveling alone and chanhed her seat so that a family of 3 could be tougether. They put her next to a mum with a crying toddler. I was looking for an explanation and there was non. There were acting crazy. So I gave her my seat and I have spend 9 hours next to a restless child.
The plane was old, not clean and the bathrooms were smelly when we started.
This was my first and last time traveling with Swiss airlines.

Changing paid seats without providing a valid alternative, when all the good seats are booked.

Worst airline I’ve ever flown. Zero announcements were made by Naples gate agent about our flight being delayed due to maintenance issues. In Zurich they charged us for our bags….again….even after explaining/arging with the ticket agent and her supervisor for an hour. They have a disjointed/laborious check in process. The seat room is sub par. Awful airline.

Grace from Swiss Airlines was very disrespectful and not helpful at all. I expressed my concerns and asked for guidance and advice on how to get my confirmation of a cancelled flight, and also the status of the refund, and if I could book a rebooking. He ended up leaving the chat and closing it, leaving me without any help. Worst support I have ever experienced!

I had a frustrating experience with SWISS Airlines regarding my reservation. I was unable to select or modify my seats due to a persistent system error on their website, app and helpline. I attempted to resolve the issue by calling their support line three separate times and was told the problem was known and ongoing.

I submitted a formal complaint requesting some form of goodwill gesture (like a seat upgrade or at least making seat reservation possible), considering I was denied access to a service that should have been available.

To my disappointment, the response I received completely ignored the fact that I had already contacted their support line. I was advised to “clear my cache” or “try a different browser”—generic advice I had already followed. I was at least hoping that some steps would be taken to make seat reservation possible at the regular fee, but instead, no action was taken at all. They even stated that “we do not offer goodwill gestures,” as if customer inconvenience due to their own technical issues doesn’t matter.

This experience shows a complete lack of accountability and care for customer satisfaction. Their response was dismissive, robotic, and unhelpful. I will not hesitate to recommend others avoid SWISS based on this, and I will share this experience widely. Customer service matters—and SWISS is clearly not listening.

I tried to book a flight from Copenhagen to Fuerteventura for 4 people. The whole process went fine until the last step, the payment one (of course!)
I tried to pay for the reservation but the process failed. I immediately checked my card and more than 600 euros are now blocked. I know they will be returned, but it will/could take up to 25 days according to SWISS.
I called their customer service, sent emails, asked them to unblock my money (as I was not able to book my tickets and the reservation failed). Apparently, there is nothing they can do and I have to wait 25 days to get my money back. DO NOT BOOK, rubbish company!

Zero stars if possible! Don’t travel with Swiss Air!!!
We had an outrageously bad experience travelling with Swiss Air!!! On 27. of july we travelled Nice-Zürich-Copenhagen and missed our connecting flight in Zürich due to delay caused by weather-conditions. We were waiting 3 chaotic hours from 22.15-1.30 at Transferdesk A along with hundreds other passengers in order to get rebooked and offered accommodation. It was repeatedly announced in the speaker by the staff, that we should book accommodation ourselves because they were understaffed, and that we should easily get the hotel- and airport-transfer-expenses refunded by sending the receipts to Swiss Air customer service. We got rebooked with a final delay of 22 hours, so we had to stay overnight. Now Swiss Air Customer service refuse to refund anything even after a long correspondence and documentation stating that they are legally obliged to make the refunds. Ridiculous! Shame on Swiss Air🤯

I encountered significant issues during my recent trip with the airline.

Despite being provided a voucher for accommodation that included dinner and breakfast, the hotel failed to deliver these meals.

While the airline issued the voucher, they seemed unaware or indifferent to the problems caused by the hotel’s failure to honor the arrangement.

Communication throughout the process felt slow and impersonal, and I had to repeatedly follow up to claim reimbursement.

Overall, the handling of this situation gave the impression of a lack of genuine care for passengers’ well-being and comfort during disruptions.

I hope the airline reviews its partner arrangements and improves customer support to prevent similar experiences in the future.

Everything went wrong.
Staff are obviously trained to be dishonest.
The refund policy for taxi's, flights, hotels & meals is designed to discourage you from following through.
A horrible airline and a disgrace to Switzerland.
They're incapable and should just stop.

2 reservations, 2 times my boarding pass showing 'GATE'. No possibility to select a seat. And no guarantee to actually fly..
The first time, I was informed about the overbooking, and I was lucky that some passengers decided to give up their seat at the last minute to take another flight..
Customer Service has been no help, they only advise to show up two hours before departure

I am Swiss and a frequent business traveller, flying 40-50 flights per year. Over the last 30 years SWISS got so bad that I cannot recommend to fly SwISS any longer. Leg space is 3x less in Economy compared to United. Avoid SWISS whenever you have a choice.