In Paise of Swiss Fly/Rail Convenience

The ease of luggage-free intermodal travel in efficient Switzerland.

Swiss International Air Lines wins my heart with its Fly/Rail program. When you check for any SWISS flight, you can check your bags through to any Swiss railway or bus station or even have them delivered directly to your hotel. Having already flown from Denver to Los Angeles for my SWISS flight to Zurich, I was happy that I wouldn't need to deal with my big, heavy rolling duffle and my ski bag on two trains and one Post bus to Adelboden. In fact, I checked my luggage all the way through to my hotel. The cost was just $8 per bag.

Nothing like that exists in the US or elsewhere, but stay with me and imagine a ski trip to Aspen from from anywhere in the world. Imagine flying to Denver, getting on a train directly in the terminal, changing trains say, in Eagle (that's not Amtrak's route, but we're imagining here) and changing to a bus in Glenwood Springs for Aspen (we're still imagining, so we're pretending here's no airport in Aspen). Now, imagine that you haven't touched your luggage the entire way. And, now, when you're ready to go back home, you can have your bags picked up at your hotel or check them in at the bus station in Aspen, and you won't see them until you reach your final airport. Every connection will be seamless, because 10 minutes been trains or between the train and the bus in Switzerland is ample time.

The other thing that you need to imagine is that those bags won't get lost. I expected that when I arrived in the resort town of Adelboden at around 6:00 p.m., my bags would be on the same bus. What I didn't know is that there is a cut-off time for arrival in Zurich (ZRH) or Geneva (GVA) in order for bags to make it to small mountain towns the same day. I know that mine weren't lost. I just didn't know that in order for that to happen with Adelboden, the SWISS flight needs to have landed before noon. Otherwise, the bags arrive the next day -- and they did.

I enthusiastically recommend Fly/Rail, but if you use the service, check with tourist office of you destination to see what the cut-off time is if you need your luggage the day you arrive. I would expect every SWISS station to have this information at hand. If your flight arrival time doesn't make the cut-off for that particular resort, take what you need in a carry-on -- being sure to put liquids and gels (no larger than 3 ounces) in a one-quart plastic zip bag, as the Transportation Security Agency's rules require.

Swiss International Air Lines is more cosmopolitan than its predecessor --but just as efficient.


Until the demise of Swissair in October 2001 (having nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks but with terrible financial decisions and surprising accusations of malfeasance by the former airline's management), everything about the national airline of Switzerland was and felt 100 percent Swiss. Its successor, Swiss International Air Lines (which calls itself SWISS in literature and on the aircraft fuselage) is less Swiss and more international.


In the Economy section of the Los Angeles-Zurich flight, I was surprised that the splits of wine were not Fendant and Dole but rather a nameless Australian blend bottled for SWISS, and that the packaged cheese was Tillamook, the butter was Land o' Lakes, the packet of salad dressing was Heinz and the dessert was a brownie from Love & Quiches of Long Island -- of all places. This in the airline of a country known for its cheeses and chocolates. There was a time when only Swiss products were served aboard the national airline of Switzerland, regardless of where the flight originated.

But then, today's SWISS is not 100 percent Swiss. It is part of Germany's Lufthansa Group. But it remains a bastion of Swiss efficiency. The flight not only left LAX on time but actually arrived in ZRH almost an hour ahead of schedule. Perhaps the German and Swiss combination demonstrates the new airline math: punctual + punctual = early. OK. So it was the tailwind -- but it was still pretty impressive!

Elliott on Finding Cheap Air Fares
Where to get the cheapest air fares -- and why price is not always the only reason to book.

Christopher Elliott, in his debut as a podcaster using the (small) screen name of The Armchair Traveler, provided three suggestions for getting the very lowest air fares. You can see his podcast for a bit more info (and check his website for a steady stream of consumer-oriented travel information), but here are his three favorite online sources for the best air deals:


Kayak, an aggregator that assembles info from other sites
Expert Flyer, a subscription service that compares all possible air fares for a specific routing. This service offers a five-day free trial in case you want to check it out.
Airlines' own websites, specifically citing Southwest Airlines
Sometimes, of course, cheap is not the only criterion. I checked airlines' own websites when I recently booked flights between Denver and Los Angeles to connect with a Swiss flight. Only the two airlines that hub in Denver made any kind of sense. Frontier had the cheapest roundtrip fare ($209), but outbound, I would have had to endure a seven-hour layover at LAX -- on top of reaching DIA, waiting for my domestic flight at DIA, flying to LAX, making my way through LAX, a long overnight flight on Swiss International Airlines (albeit anticipating a good night's sleep on the plane), going through light-touch Swiss immigration/customs procedures, waiting for a train and taking three trains to reach a small Swiss resort. Needless to say, I didn't book that itinerary.

United had convenient connection on the way out and not excessively expensive ($289 reoundtrip) considering that it spared me that killer LAX layover, but the my return, I would have arrived at LAX too late for the last non-stop to Denver. I would have had to fly between LAX and Denver via San Francisco or spend a night in Los Angeles and come home the next morning. I ended up booking two one-way fares -- $269 DEN-LAX on United and $109 on Frontier (LAX-DEN). Was it the cheapest? Not at all, but it is the only combo that made sense in other respects. Sometimes, a traveler's gotta do what a traveler's gotta do -- even if it is a little more expensive.