Flight Review: Aer Lingus Zurich to Gatwick May 30 2009

Aer Lingus launched their Zurich - London Gatwick route in April 2009 and after some scouring of online fares from all airlines for a trip to London, I settled on using the Irish airline for the first time. My one-way trip cost around 145CHF including taxes.

I love flying from Zurich airport. The Swiss lounge is a nice place to spend an hour or so before a flight, the Duty Free is excellent and usually the queues at Security are short and swiftly dealt with.

Unfortunately, on the last few times I have travelled from Zurich, the Security regime has become more like its more useless and annoying counterparts in Europe, even including a man employed to tell you which queue to join because you cannot be trusted to decide yourself.

So

Aer Lingus departs from the E gates, which means a short trip on the monorail, which always amuses me with its soundtrack of Swiss sounds and noises including alpine horns, rivers and even mooing cows. After getting to the gate, we had a short 10-minute delay which was announced twice.

The aircraft itself was a new Airbus A320 with leather seats within the cabin. I was allocated a seat on the 6th row. I checked in online but you can also choose a seat for a fee, with seats in the first 6 rows costing more. I should point out that I did not pay to select a seat, checked in bangon the 30-hour limit before departure and was automatically allocated a seat near the front.

We departed around 15 minutes late, but with a nice comfy seat, I had nodded off pretty fast.

The in-flight food and drink was reasonable priced although there were no sandwiches or hot food. I had a Diet Pepsi which set me back 3 CHF.

We landed 5 minutes late and all in all it was an uneventful and very comfortable flight. It was a bit of a trek from the plane to passport Control, which was being refurbished and I am glad I was one of the first to get there. The BAA airports are really shambolic and unappealing in parts.

I would recommend the Aer Lingus service between London Gatwick and Zurich with no hesitation.