My annual trip to Barcelona
If you’ve been reading my other articles, you will have probably noticed a pattern of certain trade shows I like to visit to drum up business for my company. There’s Vegas in December and Barcelona in February.
I didn’t do very well in 2025 on keeping my status up with the airlines. I did have top status with all three major alliances, thanks to status matching. I am hoping to fly enough in 2026 to regain my Senator status with Lufthansa. So, to that end, I’ve booked this trip within the Lufthansa group and all in business class!
Note that with Lufthansa to get status, you need to fly at least half of your flights on a Lufthansa Group airline, which includes the likes of Austrian, Brussels Airlines and Swiss, to name a few.
Booking
As always, I did a lot of shopping around to find the best deal. If I’m not going to fly budget and I’m going to avoid BA, then I’d need to fly indirect and connect somewhere. Which for a trip like London to Barcelona is slightly annoying, but it’s good for the points. I was also very aware of the cost of hotels in Barcelona, which resulted in an interesting solution to maximising my time without many nights staying in Barcelona hotels.
Having searched around, I settled with a booking on Swiss, which is part of the Lufthansa Group, so great for points.
The booking I chose was from Gatwick to Zürich, an overnight stop and then Zürich to Barcelona early the next day. This would give me a full day at the trade show, without costing me a Barcelona hotel price. The hotel stop in Zürich was far cheaper than Barcelona. Going from Gatwick was not ideal, or so I thought, read on to see why I was pleasantly surprised. The price was much cheaper than Heathrow in Business, so I took it. Interestingly though, neither of these flights were originally going to be operated by Swiss Air. The first flight is on Helvetic Airways, an independent Swiss airline that has a long-standing arrangement with Swiss, they operate on a wet lease agreement running some flights for them. The second flight said it was on Air Baltic. Again, they have a wet lease agreement whereby Air Baltic operate some routes on behalf of Swiss Air. Since writing this, I have checked my booking again, and for some reason the second flight is now listed as being operated by Swiss, so I will have to see when I get there whose plane it is.
Both flights are in business class, so it will be interesting to see what the service is like and if I get the usual benefits, like lounge access. The other interesting thing that happened after booking was, I booked the outbound as 2 separate flights, the whole booking was booked using a multi-city booking consisting of 3 flights, including the return leg. When the booking appeared in my app, it linked the first two flights together as one connected flight with a long stopover in Zürich.
For the return, I was coming straight home. The most direct option was on Lufthansa, flying via Frankfurt to Heathrow, with a 1 hour 5 min stop. Just long enough for any delays to make my transfer a nice little rush around the airport, going by my previous Lufthansa trips. Fingers crossed it’ll be on time and I can get my last flight without issues.
So, the whole route is: London – Zürich – Barcelona, then Barcelona – Frankfurt – London, all booked in Business class, meaning I’ll get 4 sectors worth of points. The cost was just over £500. That was pretty good considering the equivalent direct flights on British Airways (Club Europe) were just slightly more.
Getting to Zürich
Oh no, Gatwick airport, again. I didn’t enjoy it last time, boy was I in for a surprise. Gatwick airport is technically closer to home, by about 15minutes, but after my last visit I wasn’t looking forward to going back. Read about my last trip through there here.
My other half was working, so no easy lifts for me today. I took an Uber to Epsom, where I caught a train down to Dorking, followed by a short walk to Dorking Deepdene, where I caught the train to Gatwick. I only had a backpack on this trip, so this was easy. I wouldn’t be doing this with luggage in the future. The trains were on time, and I was in Gatwick airport in good time. Regardless of the quality of the lounge, I’ll always leave plenty of time to get to the airport, I’d rather hang around there knowing I’m in the right place for my flight, than be worrying stuck on a late running train. Swiss operate from the North Terminal, the home of Easyjet, so I headed out to the transit train to travel over there.
Upon arrival I headed straight to Fast Track security, my business class boarding pass let me through and I arrived in a quiet area to be scanned. With the new security rules back on again, i.e. don’t take anything out of your bag and limit of 2L of liquids, I was through in no time.
Now to find out what the lounge situation is. Last time I was here I had read I should be able to use the Clubhouse lounge, but it was closed and I used the No.1 lounge, which wasn’t great. This time, the websites had said the same, so I went to look. As you walk into the lounge area there are two lounges here, the “No.1 Lounge and “My Lounge”. The latter was closed, which surprised me as last time it was rammed (since writing I’ve discovered it has been reopened and rebranded). There’s a lift here that takes you down to the Emirates lounge below and the Clubhouse lounge below that.
The Swiss website said Clubhouse lounge, so I went for it. My heart sank a bit as the doors were closed, but as I approached, they opened automatically and I was in.
A hidden gem at Gatwick
As the doors swung open, I walked into a world that I didn’t know existed at Gatwick. There was a short corridor, with an alcove on the right, which was clearly where they check people in, but nobody around so I carried on in. There was a further section on my right which seemed like a private area for someone to sit in, with a lady sat in there having a drink and doing some work. As I carried on in and the lounge opened out, there was a guy behind the bar, he spotted me and immediately called his colleague out to welcome me. She came over quickly and led me back to the alcove area to do my check-in. I asked her if this indeed was the correct lounge for flying with Swiss and she said yes, it was and I was the first Swiss passenger of the day for her. After scanning my boarding pass, she led me into the lounge, gave me a quick tour of the facilities and asked me where I’d like to sit. There were two further people in the lounge so I selected a corner sofa area, with a table, out of the way of everyone else, but with a good view of the lounge so I can see what’s going on. She indicated where I could get soft drinks along with tea and coffee if I wanted. There was also a small selection of self-service nibbles and sweet treats. When I was seated, she presented me with my food menu, drinks menu and a daily specials menu. This was an impressive start for this lounge. I’ve shown the menus in the photos below, as you can see there was a good selection of light and full-size meals.
The drinks menu was extensive, with good wine lists and cocktail options. Plus, a specials menu which was a nice touch. Everything was included except for proper champagne, which was chargeable. Note they did have French sparkling wine in both white and rosé included free of charge, it just wasn’t an actual champagne. As this was an evening flight and I was going straight to bed when I got there, I decided to enjoy some cocktails. I ordered the Skyline 75, which happened to be their special. Along with some peanuts, that I helped myself to from the snack bar, I settled down to relax in the lounge. She informed me that the lounge was going to close at 6pm, with food orders ending at 5:30pm. This was perfect as my flight was at 6:40pm, so I’ll be boarding at about the time the lounge closes. I later discovered that the lounge is actually open until this time for the Swiss flight. As it was a little early to eat, I decided to hold off on food and just enjoy my cocktail until a bit later on. The lounge was relatively small, but after about half an hour I was the only one there, so that didn’t really matter. When I enquired, she said that the lounge was now only really open for those who pay or those who were on Swiss. The payment fee to get in was £54. The lounge was, as I mentioned, small but well appointed, nice furnishings and colours making a very pleasant experience. Honestly, it felt very reminiscent of the Concorde lounge at Heathrow. The only thing missing was a view, the windows clearly didn’t look out on anything attractive, so they were frosted and had decorative curtains, I presume during the day they let daylight in from above. A little later, when I finished my first cocktail, I order a another one, a Kir Royale (something I miss from the BA onboard drinks menu) and I decided to try out the fish goujon sandwich for my meal.
The staff were very attentive, but not in an annoying way, they knew when to come over and talk to you and when to leave you alone. My supper arrived in good time and was absolutely delicious. There was time for one more drink before I left the lounge, to go with my dessert, so I asked if I could try the rosé sparkling wine, which she commented was an excellent choice. While I waited for my drink, I headed over to the sweet bar and found a very nice-looking chocolate brownie. It was indeed delicious, a perfectly made brownie. She quickly came back over to state that while I would be getting my rosé sparkling wine, they did have some Moet rosé open that was about to be thrown anyway, so she was happy to give it to me for free as an alternative, if I preferred champagne. Personally, she preferred the sparkling wine as she found it lighter than the champagne, but she was happy to give me the choice. I thought why not? I’ll give it a try. She promptly came back with both glasses, the sparkling rosé wine and the Moet rosé. I had to try both of course, and maybe another brownie as well, because they were amazing. Both wines were actually very good, but you could tell the champagne was champagne and personally I preferred it.
All in all, this lounge very much impressed me, the service was very friendly and attentive, and it was nice to have drinks and food brought to you. There was a good selection of soft drinks and tea/coffee is available if I wanted them and I like any lounge that provides you snacks and sweets that you can help yourself to when you want to. The decor was very nice, it felt “up market” and the atmosphere very pleasant as well. I did get chatting to the lady who was serving me about how busy the lounge gets, and she confirmed that it was normally busy in the mornings, but very quiet in the evenings. She said if I was flying Swiss she would recommend flying at this time as it’s always quiet, possibly helped by the fact that the plane is an Embraer, so it’s quite a small aircraft anyway. All of this will actually make me positively choose Swiss from Gatwick again in the future just so I get to use it (and I will do, keep an eye out for my other trips to Europe in 2026). This was definitely better than Lufthansa Senator lounge at Heathrow and all the BA business/first lounges. If I was to rate this against my other favourite UK lounges, it would certainly be up there with Cathay First, Virgin Clubhouse and BA Concorde room.
London Gatwick to Zürich, on Swiss (Helvetic) in business class
I reluctantly pulled myself out of the lounge to go board my flight. Unlike last time, this gate was not miles away. It was one of those gates where they check your boarding pass on the way in and you go to a waiting area until they are ready for you to board. I was in the gate area for only 5 minutes when they called groups 1 and 2 over the speakers. It was slightly odd as there was nobody by the ramp down to the doors indicating it was ok to go down, but equally there was no barrier either. Everyone had just assumed we shouldn’t go down the ramp. When they made the announcement to start boarding, nobody moved at first as it wasn’t obvious we were ok to just wonder down by ourselves. One guy decided to head down the ramp to see what happened, so I followed him. It appeared to be the correct thing to do, and we made our way down to the aircraft. This flight was on an Embraer 190, which has a seating arrangement in a 2–2 configuration. Naturally I was in 1A, so I was right at the front of the aircraft. Everything in the aircraft referred this flight as being a Swiss plane, the aircraft itself was Helvetic owned and operated, but essentially everything on board was Swiss. The layout was a little different to the BA version with row 1 being a complete row across, whereas BA has only got row 1 on the left, and the right starts further back with row 2. No special leg room here for anyone in the front row, but it wasn’t bad. I stowed my backpack and jacket in the overhead cabin locker and settle down to enjoy my flight. Before departure we were given a bottle of water and a refreshing wipe, sealed in a packet, to use.
We pushed back, taxied and then took off, remembering now I quite like Embraer’s as they have quite a powerful take-off. Whilst in flight there was a meal and drink service. The meal was some meats and cheeses served with bread. I’ve no idea what the white stuff was, it looked like rice but was actually crunchy. I assume some kind of vegetables. But the bread, meat and cheese were nice, so I enjoyed those and waited for the drinks to come round. I said I’ll have some sparkling wine and was told “we don’t have sparkling wine”, he carried on, “we only have white wine, red wine and champagne.” I decided not to get into an argument about the definition of champagne and ask for that, it was very pleasant, but I didn’t manage to catch the variety. There was a dessert cup with the meal, I wasn’t too sure what it was, but it wasn’t to my liking, so I left it. Unlike on the BA Embraer’s from London City Airport, Swiss keeps the rule of keeping the seat next to you empty in business class. So, there were only 3 of us, with only the first 2 rows of the aircraft being used. This did cause a slight commotion when they had to move the curtain before take-off so that we have our private section to ourselves.
Upon arrival into Zürich, we disembarked to find ourselves at a bus gate, but they were very clear to direct business class customers to a business class bus. One of the three of us was actually disabled and he had his own private transport coming to the plane, in the form of one of those trucks that pick up disabled passengers. So, it was just 2 of us heading to a bus. This was not like the buses you get in Qatar, where you get some nice luxury leather seats. This was just a normal airport bus. Yes, a high-capacity bus designed for about 100 people with just 2 of us sat on it. We were whisked off to the airport, slightly bemused, before the rest of the plane disembarked. When we got to the airport building, I attempted to go and do the EU registration system with my fingerprints, but nothing seemed to work properly. I was sent by the machine to go and see a person, who then scanned me in and told me I still have to go to see a person every time I enter Europe.
Hyatt Place at Zürich Airport
After passport control, I skipped through baggage claim and out of the airport. I knew the hotel was in the shopping centre beside the airport, and it was well signposted from the exit. I followed the signs and in less than a five-minute walk I was over in the middle of the shopping centre finding a way into the hotel. My first impressions of the hotel were very good, well this is a Hyatt, so you are expecting it to be good. Check-in was very friendly and there were lots of options for me to have a drink before bed or breakfast in the morning, but I was here to sleep before my next flight. He even told me my room had been upgraded, I’m not sure why, maybe they had sold out of my room type? The room was very nice, very much what you expect from a Hyatt hotel. And I had a great night’s sleep there, despite getting up fairly early at 5am to head back over to the airport for my early morning flight to Barcelona.
Zürich to Barcelona, on Swiss (maybe?) in business class
In typical random human style, I woke up five minutes before my alarm, got up, showered, dressed and headed straight back down to cross from the shopping centre back to the airport for my flight. My only concern here was I needed to find a lounge for breakfast, but I needed to find the nearest to where my flight was going to be. It’s a big airport and I’d already found there were several Swiss lounges to choose from. Given I didn’t have a gate number yet, it wasn’t obvious where to go.
I headed to departures and looked for the fast-track area, which was practically empty, so I headed through there in absolutely no time, and I was spat out into the main concourse area. Since I did have a rough idea where my flight would go from, I think it was B Gates, I headed towards the lounge in that general direction. The lounge was clearly marked on the outside for business class to one side and a Senator entrance to the other, so, as I still had my Senator status, which was going to expire again that month, I headed to the Senator side. I was welcomed in and I noticed on the way there was some showers there, that would be useful for a future trip.
The lounge was very nicely appointed, with plenty of seating options, I found myself a nice armchair out of the way and headed for breakfast. There was a huge selection of food available, plenty of cold options, including pastries, bread, meat, cheeses etc. There was a station with a chef who was offering eggs in any style, along with bacon, sausages and other things that he could’ve cooked. I didn’t particularly fancy a hot meal this morning, so I started with a ham and cheese bread roll and followed up with some pastries. While I waited the lounge steadily got busier and busier. By the time I came to leave there were almost no seats available. Now glad I arrived here early.
When I did leave it was a short walk down to the gate. This time it was a very busy flight, being a completely full A321neo. I managed to time my arrival well and they called boarding moments after I arrived, before long I was back in my favourite seat, 1A. Much like the last flight, there was no sign of this not being a Swiss aircraft, in fact I think this was owned by Swiss. The flight was much the same experience as the last one, so I took my bottle of water and settled in. After take-off there were drinks and a meal was offered. As I had had plenty to eat in the lounge I decided not to go for the meal. I just took a drink. Very quickly after take-off I discovered that Zürich was covered in a very low cloud, and we popped out to the sun rising over the Alps. The views were spectacular as we flew along the Alps and I was on the perfect side of the aircraft to view it all. There’s plenty of photos to show you below. We then crossed down into France and then onto the Spanish coastline. We landed into Barcelona early, and I managed to head down to the Metro to get to my tradeshow before it opened, so my plan all worked out very nicely. I was very impressed with Swiss, they’ve clearly picked the best lounge at Gatwick, the lounge in Zürich was good and the service on board was very friendly and attentive. I’m looking forward to flying with them long haul in the future, (a wait that was going to be much longer than I thought!).
Barcelona to London Heathrow, via Frankfurt on Lufthansa in Business class
The trip home was considerably less interesting and there’s not a lot new to report here as I’ve reported on Lufthansa short-haul flights before. The major difference for me was I experienced a new lounge in Barcelona. Usually, I’d be flying with British Airways meaning I’d go to the non-Schengen lounge. But as I was flying to Frankfurt first, this meant I had to go to the Schengen lounge instead. This lounge was absolutely rammed and I’m not a fan of taking photos of lounges with lots of people in, so unfortunately, I don’t have any photos to show you. Also, I quickly bumped into other people that I knew from my trade show and joined them for some company. The food and drink selection I think was identical to the other lounge, with some light food items which I nibbled on while waiting for my flight.
I was almost relieved at boarding time to get out of the lounge, as it was so busy, still better than not being in a lounge at all though. The flight itself was highly unremarkable, being offered the usual Lufthansa business class fare, but I think by this point I was so tired I just slept all the way to Frankfurt. At Frankfurt Airport I had just about enough time to stick my head into a lounge, after passport control to get to the non-Schengen area. I grabbed a very quick drink, used the toilet and headed down to my gate. The last flight being almost identical to the previous flight, again I slept most of the way until we landed in Heathrow. The arrival process at Terminal 2 was unremarkable and, as I was hand luggage only, I was through in no time and on my way home.
Bottom line
Lufthansa offer a fairly solid reliable product on their short haul routes, you know what you’re going to get, it’s nothing special, but it does the job. Somehow Swiss, even though they’re owned by Lufthansa, managed to offer a better service. The staff are certainly more friendly, approachable and feel like they’re more attentive. Lufthansa feels more business-like. But the main purpose of this report was to review the Swiss experience, and this was significantly improved by the excellent lounge at Gatwick before my departure. The flights on Swiss were both certainly some of the nicest flights I’ve had on short haul trips around Europe, mainly due to the friendliness and attentiveness of the staff. Very much looking forward to flying with them again, especially if I can get myself a long-haul trip with them! (Look out for my Vegas trip at the end of 2026)
