airlines

Business takeovers are always a huge roll of the dice, but we suspect it will ultimately be successful between Lufthansa and Swiss. The latter was taken over in 2005, but Lufthansa press releases emphasize “partnership.” We shall see. Swiss has a longstanding reputation for courtesy and efficiency, and so far their reputation remains solid. All the expected luxury appointments and services are present. But for the techno-geek that lurks in all of us, a few too-cool features are too entertaining to ignore. For one, your video monitor can display flight data, such as air speed, distance flown and distance remaining. That technology has been around for years, maybe not on my own screen and at my command, but Swiss has upped the ante: two onboard cameras let you watch the world in front of the aircraft as well as below it.