Helvetic Airways (for Swiss) Business Class Review, Embraer 190: Round the World, Flight 1 of 25

Hello and welcome to a very special Trip Report. It's a really exciting day for me as after 11

months in the making and planning I'm embarking finally on my world tour. I'm traveling around the

world eastwards with a variety of airlines taking in 15 new airlines that you've not seen before on

this channel, most of which I've never experienced before myself. First leg is today with Helvetic

Airways flying from humble Birmingham Airport here in the West Midlands into Zurich, Switzerland

Enjoy the video. And hello to my first ever try at doing a voiceover. Birmingham Airport

has a transit train linking the railway station with the airport itself. When I was a kid this

was a futuristic magnetic levitation train, but that was replaced in 2003. It's now a much less

novel cable-driven system, but it still works just as well, I guess

Checking in here at Birmingham is easy. It's not far from the transit station

and with my ticket, I can access the business class line here. Once that's done, it is through security, which is a nightmare. I travelled during the half-term

school holidays, so the airport is very, very busy. Security took 30 minutes. Look at those lines

That's not good, and it's not the first time it's happened to me either. Birmingham is generally a pleasant airport, so I do hope they address this soon

In fact, the airport is so busy, I get turned away from the excellent number one lounge using Priority Pass as its full

However, I can still use the very pleasant Aspire Lounge. In fact, this is the lounge that Swiss provide for their business class ticket holders here in Birmingham

It's a pretty nice space with some good runway and apron views and the decor isn't too over

the top. The lounge is well stocked with drinks in bottles, optics and, my favourite, a postmix machine

There's also plenty of choice for breakfast, from cereals, bread, pastries to a variety

of hot options. Aspire is a very strong airport lounge brand here in the UK and, along with Number 1, which

you can see in other videos of mine on this channel, represent in my opinion some of the

best third party lounges in Europe. The apron views give a chance to see some of the wide

variety of airlines that now serve Birmingham. Fly BF long had a strong presence here and

serve 36 destinations from Birmingham. TUI operate a mix of long and short haul routes from here. This 787 Dreamliner has actually

We just arrived from Cancun in Mexico. A quick check of Flightradar 24 tells me our aircraft is soon to land so it off to the gate As a quick reminder this flight is operated by Helvetic but on behalf of Swiss International Airlines

so the onboard service you'll see is exactly the same as you'd get onboard any Swiss flight

This Air Austral 787 is a rare visitor, and has been here for months as it gets its Rolls-Royce engine seen to

There's been a global problem with the Trent 1000 engines. Freebird, which you can see here, are a Turkish charter airline operating flights to Turkey

not surprisingly. And here's our aircraft, just arrived. She's an Umbrella 190LR and is 8 years old. This aircraft used to fly for Nikkei, an Austrian

budget airline. She's been with Helvetic since 2014. The Umbrella regional jets are really great

I love them. Let me know what you think of them in the comments below. my ticket in business class entitles me to priority boarding but it's not particularly

well organized and all the priority boarders just gather in a huddle there's no separate line

soon however it's time to board and it's a good opportunity to tell you about following me on

other social media i have an instagram account which you can see me using right here and i use

it to live blog all my trips using the stories function it was great fun interacting with you

all during this world tour and it would be great to see you add yourself to over 4,000 others

currently on my Instagram account. I'm also on Twitter. Seating on the 190 is in a 2 plus 2

configuration. Every business class seat has the adjacent one blocked off for extra room

The overhead bins will also take most sizes of carry-on. As is standard in Europe there's no solid bulkhead between economy and business. That

The curtain moves back and forward depending on how many business class seats are sold

and it will be closed once we're airborne. As with all Swiss flights, water and a cleansing towel are handed out just before we push back

It's a nice touch. It also looks like I've got the whole front row to myself today

The legroom is pretty standard for a bulkhead row and will be fine for this short flight

Let's take a look at today's route. It's 572 miles as the crow flies and will take us one

hour and 21 minutes today. Something I noticed about Helvetic's overhead lockers is that the

front ones are reserved for business class. That stops a lot of conflict as I've seen people just

throw things in the row one lockers before and walk down to economy. The tray table is stowed in

the armrest here in the front row, but although it folds nicely, it wasn't too stable, and

I moved to the aisle when my food was served. So, on to the meal. This was a mid-morning flight, so breakfast was served. I have to

say I'm not a big fan of foil being left on business class meals when they're served

Here's how mine arrived. What do you think? However, the meal was a reasonable size and

quality for this short hop and I didn't go hungry on this flight. Swiss place a lot of

attention to detail into their service and I love their custom made silverware. It's

good to see their logo here, which is a big plus. I wonder if any Swiss followers here

can help me out with the name of the dish. Let me know in the comments below. The muesli

was very pleasant and there was also some cheese. I'm not really a big fan of cheese

so I can't tell you if it was any good or not. A lot of you ask me how I take some of the footage in my reports

The answer is a lot of low-tech improvisation, just like this. Overall, the meal that I was served on board was very tasty

and it certainly gets the thumbs up from me. There's good coffee on board, and chocolate is also served

as it is on all Swiss flights. Helvetic actually have leaflets on board as recruitment material for their cabin crew

I don't think I've ever seen that before on an airline. The in-flight magazine is glossy and all of the articles are translated into English

There an article on the fantastic new C aircraft which I be flying in in the next trip report after this one There also another feature on the cabin crew Time for one more chocolate as we descend towards Zurich after a smooth and uneventful flight

I also managed to spy this unidentified A320 high above us heading in the opposite direction

After a brief hold, we make our approach to Zurich, which is actually mostly over Germany

This is the town of Lauchringen in Germany. The River Rhine divides Germany in the foreground here from Switzerland

So that's the first of 25 flights in this epic round-the-world tour complete

Stay tuned to this series, subscribe to me, and turn on your notifications

Highlights from this trip include a surprising experience on Saudi Arabian Airlines

a trip on America's most hated airline, the best flight of my life on Cathay Pacific's First Class, and much, much more

Overall, this was a perfectly good flight with Helvetic. You can take this trip yourself, starting from £289 return in business

or £139 return in economy. Business class comes with extra baggage allowance

priority boarding and of course a much higher rate of earning miles

One final touch which I really appreciated from Swiss here is that as you can see me disembark

there's a special business class bus which I get directed to. That's really good and helps with the fast transfer here at Zurich

and that's it for another trip report thanks so much for coming with me on that short hop between

birmingham and zurich i've got a five to six hour connection here and i'm off to milan malpenza

on the next flight that'll be the next video on this channel thanks for coming with me hope to see

you next time