General Travel

Connecting At Zurich Airport – A Quick Look

September 27, 2016

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As I often suggest travelers take “positioning flights” around Europe (and the US) to make the most of any great Business Class fares that come around or to make the most of award availability that appears somewhere that isn’t your home airport, I thought I’d share my experience of doing just that at Zurich airport.

Note: As well as Cathay Pacific, the gates from which I departed Zurich airport also serve airlines like Etihad, Qatar Airways, and Singapore Airlines (amongst others) so this information could be useful for a good number of flyers.

As I explained in the introduction to this series of reviews/reports, I knew that my chances of finding Cathay Pacific First Class award availability out of London, for dates that worked for me, were slim so I looked to other European cities to see what was available. Zurich came up trumps with more First Class availability than I knew what to do with so that was going to be my jumping off point for my Cathay Pacific First Class flight.

My Cathay Pacific flight was scheduled to depart Zurich at 1:30pm…..

…..so that meant I had time to fly from London to Zurich that same day and save myself the cost of an airport hotel the night before.

A 7:05 am flight isn’t ideal for someone as averse to early mornings as I but it was the flight that worked best for me in other ways – it was a good price, it got me in to Zurich at a time that meant I wasn’t cutting it close and, because I have oneworld status I could select an exit row at the time of booking….so I would be comfortable.

The Zurich Airport Experience

After landing at Zurich Airport it took no me more than 15 minutes to disembark, clear immigration and to find myself standing in a main part of the terminal looking up at a departures board that didn’t yet show my flight.

That wasn’t too much of an issue as Zurich Airport provides free public wi-fi (which isn’t bad) and I had some work to do…so I sat down at a nearby food court and typed away until 10:30am (3 hours before departure) when CX382 appeared on the departures board.

The Cathay Pacific check-in desks were in “Area 2” of Zurich airport and that, it turned out, was a very short walk across a road from the building I had arrived into.

Cathay Pacific check-in at Zurich Airport

At the check-in desk I was given an invitation to the Aspire First Class lounge and told that I should expect it to take about 30 minutes to get to the E-gates where the lounge is located.

Invitation to the Aspire First Class lounge

The E-gates are a shuttle train away from the main terminal building but it’s the lines for security and particularly immigration that add time to the journey.

Zurich airport has priority lanes for security….

Zurich Airport priority lanes (on the left)

Zurich Airport priority lanes

…but the lines weren’t bad at all and I’m not sure that the priority lane was that much quicker than the regular lane (this may be different at peak times of the day).

The walk from check-in to security took no more than 2 minutes and security itself only took 10 minutes to clear, so I was soon airside.

Once I cleared security I found myself in a small duty free area that looked like every other duty free area you find in Europe and, once I taken the 15 second walk through that, I was in the main terminal area.

There were shops to the left….

Zurich Airport

…and to the right…..

Zurich Airport

…and straight ahead were the escalators leading down to the shuttle train.

Zurich Airport

It was at this point that I had a little bit of luck.

After going down the first set of escalators I decided to ignore the second set leading down to the train and, instead, decided take a look around that level of the terminal.

I ignored the escalators in this picture and it worked out well

The terminal was very clean and nicely presented – pretty much what I’d expect from a Swiss airport – and even the simple eateries looked good (although the prices were astronomical!).

Zurich Airport

The level I now found myself on had a lot more shops (mostly high-end) and there were a quite a few people milling about:

Zurich Airport

As I was walking around I saw a set of elevators leading to the shuttle train so, rather than back tracking and taking the escalators, I used these to go down the final level….and that’s where I had my luck.

At the bottom level there was a very long line for immigration but the elevators had dropped me off half way down this line and there was no way to get to the back of it (other than fighting my way through the line…which I wasn’t about to do).

So there’s a tip: take the elevators to the train and not the escalators and you’ll cut out a lot of waiting around.

Also, be careful which immigration line you get into if you have an EU passport.

All the immigration lines look the same but, every now and again, the LED sign above one of the lines will show that it’s for EU and Swiss passport holders only while all the other lines are for everybody else.

The EU line is a lot faster – I was through in around 10 minutes while others, traveling on their US passports, took at least twice as long.

Past immigration was the shuttle train….which was a bit of a scrum….

Zurich Airport shuttle train

….but, once onboard, it got me to the E-gates within a few minutes.

From check-in to the E-gates took me about 30 minutes (not including time spent looking around the terminal)…and that’s using an EU passport. If you’re traveling on a non-EU passport I’d leave at least 40 minutes during regular hours and even longer during peak times.

Next up: The Aspire First Class Lounge at Zurich Airport