Swiss Business Class Lounge (E) Zurich Airport Review

Worth Coming to Airport Early For: Yes (Great food & great views)

Better Than The Terminal? Yes (Zurich airport’s terminals are nice but it’s hard to beat the views from this lounge)

Introduction

After a surprisingly great flight from Singapore to Zurich in Swiss Airlines Business Class, it was time to head to the Swiss business class lounge at Zurich airport to relax for a bit ahead of my next and final flight to Newark in United Polaris.

This lounge is one of the nicer business class lounges in Europe. There’s great food, a great selection of seats, and most importantly to me – incredible views. I’d highly recommend carving out some time to check out this lounge if flying out of Zurich Airport’s Terminal E gates.

In this post you’ll find:

How to Access This Lounge

This lounge is in Terminal E of Zurich airport, which primarily serves long-haul flights. On one hand, Zurich airport is objectively nice, but on the other feels like a mix between a minimum security prison and an empty Ikea with its brutalist architecture.

The duty free shopping here is great though – lots of quintessential Swiss products (chocolate & chocolate). Also Nespresso! If you’re into that.

Anyways, you can find this lounge nearest gates E36/E37 in Terminal E at Zurich airport. There are plenty of signs pointing upwards to the lounge – it’s hard to miss.

This lounge is accessible to those flying:

1. Swiss / Lufthansa group business class
2. Star alliance partners in business class (this is how I got in via my United flight)
3. Star alliance gold (in any cabin)
4. Swiss Senator / HON Circle members (in any cabin)

Lounge Review and Amenities

This lounge is moderately sized – around 8,000 square feet with capacity for up to ~200 guests. I arrived early in the morning from my flight from Singapore, and this lounge was basically 100% empty at 7am. However, some people did start filing in later into the morning, but it never felt busy.

The lounge entrance is on the second floor of the airport. I quickly scanned my next boarding pass (on United Polaris back to Newark) and was let in to the lounge.

The lounge is very well-designed. It feels Swiss. There’s lots of wood paneling in the lounge, and the design is relatively minimalist with neutral colors.

The wifi process is a bit unique here – you scan your boarding pass at this machine and then it prints out a wifi password. A bit overkill? I doubt that many people are trying to steal the lounge wifi…

This lounge is split up into multiple sections and seating areas – there’s a central dining area, side seating, and then even a quiet napping room. One thing consistent in this lounge is the incredible tarmac views all around, and plenty of natural light (even on this gray Swiss day). This lounge sits on top of Terminal E, so you can see the runways and tarmac all around.

Now onto amenities. The bar and kitchen area offer a ton of options:

Here’s the main kitchen area, which was completely empty when I visited at 7am:

I visited this lounge during the breakfast service. There were both hot and cold buffet options, along with small made-to-order breakfast menu.

The buffet area and open kitchen is beautiful.

They have a chef working the kitchen in the morning who can cook hot food orders on-demand (omelets, eggs, chicken sausage, etc). The buffet had a ton to offer on its own:

Behind the kitchen area there’s a huge espresso machine bar:

Now onto all the seating in the lounge, of which there are a ton of options. This lounge to me sets the standard for seating options – a mix of dining, lounge chairs, and then lie-down seats where you can catch a nap.

Some business class lounges are nice but don’t offer places to rest, which kind of defeats the point of a lounge in some ways (example offender: Japan Airlines business class lounge at Tokyo Haneda).

In the very back, you’ll find the quiet nap room that offers great views of the tarmac. If I had a longer layover, I definitely would have slept here.

One of the coolest parts about this lounge is there’s actually panoramic outdoor seating areas. Unfortunately, it was closed due to rain when I was there but I’d love to return when it’s open just to watch the planes.

Breitling must’ve struck some sort of brand partnership deal, because there were Breitling – themed popups and watch displays throughout the lounge. Kind of tacky.

Towards the front of the lounge, there’s quiet desk seating options for the corporate road warriors who need to focus on excel & powerpoint:

There are tons of nice Swiss touches in the lounge as well. For example, a fridge full of Movenpick ice cream:

Or even piles of Ricola cough drops:

And last but not least – probably the coolest view from an airport lounge bathroom that I’ve ever been to:

Conclusion

All in all, I really enjoyed the Swiss business class lounge at Zurich. It has great views, solid food options, and a great mix of seating options. It was also mostly empty for most of the time I was there, which made it a nice place to relax ahead of my final flight of this trip back to NYC. Next and final flight: Polaris on United’s ancient 767.